Unreasonable Addiction II
by Lady Russell Holmes
Summary: Six years after their first encounter, Octavius turns up once more in Clair's life, once more needing her help. This time, she gives it willingly, but what new problems face them both, and what new challenges? (Sequel to Unreasonable) (COMPLETE)
1. Relapse

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 1: Discovery**

By Yumegari and LRH

He'd increased the speed and power of his actuators. He knew all of Spider-man's tactics backward and forward. He even had the advantage of an open space in which to fight and that blasted arachnid still avoided his every strike! The actuators tore up chunks of pavement and building and still Spider-man flipped deftly between them.

"Woah, there, Doc, you even trying? I coulda dodged that one in my sleep!" Spider-man taunted, leaping aside. This only served to anger Octavius further.

"You insolent little--" he spluttered. Spider-man managed to land a lightning series of blows against Octavius' head and shoulders before deftly avoiding his next strike.

"Gettin' slow, Doc, it's not much longer before the Super-villain Retirement Home for you, is it?"

The actuators pounded against the pavement. He charged forward, reaching for the other with his bare hands.

"Though I'll bet you'd hate it there, on that low-calorie food. You might waste away to normal!"

His breath hissed in his lungs and his head pounded almost as loudly as the actuators did. They swiped and struck and still they missed. They moved blindingly fast and yet Spider-man always seemed to avoid them. Octavius' blood boiled.

"Sad, really, lumbering dinosaur like you should have retired already by now," Spider-man continued.

"GRAAAHH!" was Octavius' only comment. That voice, that _irritating _voice, would it never shut up? Would it never silence itself? He reached out again, his actuators arrowing toward him from four different directions. He would silence the pest himself, before that voice of his made his headache any worse. The first three actuators missed their mark, but the fourth caught Spider-man by the ankle in mid-leap and slammed him against the wall. Repeatedly. Octavius charged forward and grabbed hold of his foe when the actuator brought him near enough. His hands found the other's neck and gripped it.

Spider-Man kicked and struggled and webbed Octavius' head, yanking it forward and against the nearby wall. He released Spider-man, but reached out instantly and grabbed hold of him again, fingers finding the other's face, ears, eyes.

"You unceasingly agitating little pest! I will silence you myself! I will--" He broke off with a twitch. He took a deep breath and reasserted his grip. "I'll be rid of that irritating voice of yours once and for--for--for..." He twitched again, violently, his head snapping backward as his back convulsed. His hands lost their grip and Spider-man dropped, scuttling out of the way.

Images. Sensations. Memories, commands, images, sounds, sensations, data, the actuators' response, soundsdataimagesresponsecommandsdatasensations--

His hands clapped to his head and he jerked violently, uttered a strangled scream, and pitched face-first onto the pavement to lie silently, limbs convulsing weakly.

Spider-man, still clinging to the nearby wall, looked down at the other for a small while and, when Octavius didn't move, he cast a web-line and swung away, off to parts unknown. The area grew quiet and a wind ruffled the ends of Octavius' hair.

* * *

Clair came home, tired but mostly content after a long day at Harborview Medical. She'd saved a kid's life today; kept a blood clot from destroying his brain. Her Zombie Juice could have saved more of his brain cells, but it was still not approved for public use, still going through the endless battery of tests that all new drugs, especially "wonder cures" have to go through. She couldn't be testing it herself, no matter how much she wished to. The serum was attributed to a Clair Watson, some whiz kid who didn't exist anymore. Clair Holmes, resident neurosurgeon, wasn't in the research business.

It had been hard enough to get her credentials to transfer with her when the state put her in Witness Protection after her encounter with Doctor Octavius, six years ago. She had been lucky to stay in her original field at all. Her new identity had been forgiving, letting her keep her own first name and the career she loved, but only because she'd agreed to move all the way across the country. Seattle, Washington was just about as far away from NYC as you could get without taking a plane or a boat. She'd settled in well, in a nice house in Fremont, just across the street from the Troll, and was happy enough there.

But she missed the research greatly. Her last published work under her old name was the report she'd written on Dr. Octavius, which had been hailed as sensational, exaggerated, and premature until additional, more public testing supported those first results, and then it was vilified as cruel. But by then, Clair Watson had already vanished. An anonymous tip had made the police decide that it was too dangerous to leave her where she was. She wasn't sure whether to thank that person or wish them violence.

She dumped her keys on the long table in the entry way and wandered down to the back of the house, where her lab was set up. You can take the doc out of the lab, but.... She kept current with the tests being run on ZJ, and tried to duplicate their results when materials allowed. Shortly, she was deep in the middle of a decay-rate examination when a loud commotion outside her house made her set it aside and go out to check.

Apparently, a camera crew had set up to view the Fremont Troll. This wasn't unusual; whenever out-of-town news came by, they had to check out the giant cement sculpture and its accompanying VW bug. She waved amusedly to the camera as it panned by her front porch and went back inside.

* * *

He forced an eye open and noticed he was lying on the pavement where he'd been fighting Spider-man. As he pushed himself up from the ground, he noticed two things--one, that Spider-man was long gone, and two, that his right arm had gone... stupid. There was no other way to describe it. The limb in question was weak, clumsy, tingling unnervingly. He sat up, shaking it. Had he pinched a nerve? The left one didn't feel much better, but at least it could be used normally. The right leg didn't seem to be faring much better, and he found he couldn't walk properly with that leg the way it was and the weight of the actuators. He lifted himself into the air on them and clanked his way home, rubbing his right shoulder contemplatively. That pounding headache had died down to a dull, sickening ache. His vision had blurred and he felt vaguely ... sick. Letting himself into his home, he clanked his way in, dropped himself into his overstuffed easy chair and tried to relax and assess his condition.

Right. He'd experienced some kind of ... seizure, was the only word he could think of for it. Some kind of seizure. And, upon coming round, he'd discovered that his right side was less functional than it ought to be, and his vision was blurred. He slowly removed his goggles and rubbed his eyes. There was one explanation for it--well, all right, two--and he didn't relish exploring either of them.

He sighed, feeling terribly tired. Right now the last thing he wanted to do was think, and certainly not about his own condition. Almost instinctively, one actuator reached for the remote control of the television and turned it on, the news droning comfortably away as he closed his burning eyes.

"And now we have a report from our traveling travel expert, Gary Marsh. Where are you today, Gary?" asked the cheery anchorwoman on the news. The next voice was male, and distorted by background traffic.

"I'm in Seattle, Washington, Peg, and loving it. This beautiful city may not have any of the exciting attractions of New York, like super-heros and villains battling it out outside your window, but they've made up for it by creating monsters of their own."

Monsters... somehow that thought intrigued him and, with a barely interested "Mmm," he forced open sleepy eyes to look at the television screen. Seattle, Washington couldn't have much along the lines of true monsters like lizard-men or people with four extra mechanical arms. What did pass for monsters, there, then?

An image of a huge carved troll filled the screen, crouched under an overpass and eating a Volkswagen crushed in its fist. The reporter standing in front of it as scarcely as tall as said fist. "Behind me is the Fremont Troll. Sculpted by a high school class in the sixties, it's one of Seattle's least known treasures, stuck right here in the middle of this suburb, with a view of Lake Union." The camera panned around, showing a glimpse of sail-flecked blue in the distance, mostly blocked by houses. And on the porch of the nearest stood a woman. Her auburn hair was shorter now, but she was no taller than she had been six years ago, and the grey eyes hadn't changed at all. She smiled, waving at the camera, and then it had passed her, back on the reporter, who was interviewing a neighborhood child.

His eyes widened and he leaned forward... was that ... Clair? In ... Seattle? What in the world was she doing there? He flopped backward in the chair again, ignoring the stab of pain from having essentially flopped onto the actuators. Mmm. He could barely remember her, now, six years after the fact, but one hand rubbed lazily at his temple. What was it she called that neural restorative? Zombie Juice? He wondered vaguely if she was still working on that, and what had become of her findings. Good thing she wouldn't have used the name of her test subject anyway, no matter how successful said test was.

The test--of course... of course! His eyes snapped open again. The Zombie Juice! The neural degeneration must have relapsed. He leaned back in the chair, his breath coming fast, now. It had returned worse, this time. There was only one thing for it--he would have to find her. He looked back up at the television screen. Seattle, Washington. But where to start?

* * *

The next day, she had totally forgotten the incident with the film crew. She left the house early, as always, and drove to the hospital, sighing at the inordinate amount traffic crossing the lake, as always. "Backed up clear to the switch," said the radio cheerfully. She shut it off.

When she arrived at the hospital, it was to the news that her surgery patient had woken up, but he didn't seem to recognize any of his family members. The specialist wasn't hopeful. She spent every free minute that morning pouring over the transcript of the operation, trying to figure out what went wrong. She had accounted for everything, hadn't she? But a large portion of his brain had died anyway. She thought longingly of the ZJ in her lab at home, but she was forbidden to use it.

She went up at last to check on the kid, feeling like the culprit returning to the scene of the crime. To her shock, the hallway was glutted with reporters, being held back by two angry nurses and an orderly. When they saw her, the pack turned as one and descended, blinding her with flashes and lights, thrusting recorders into her face as the rapid-fire questions pelted her from all sides.

"Dr. Holmes, is it true that Michael Roth may never recover from his terrible head injury, suffered last week in a catastrophic car accident?"

"Is it true that he doesn't recognize his own family?"

"How did you feel about operating on the governor's son?"

"How do you feel about your failure?"

Clair stared at them, repulsed. "The operation was not a failure. He's alive. Now please, I have rounds." She turned and fled, hiding in a day room until she was paged to check on another patient. She played "dodge the reporters" all day, and at the end of it, fought her way through to her car with "No comment" held in front of her like a shield. She pulled over six blocks away, put her forehead to the wheel, and screamed out her frustration.

* * *

The morning sun filtered through the heavy curtains and found Octavius dozing fitfully in the armchair where he'd fallen asleep the night before. The TV was still on, and had cycled through sitcoms, the nighttime news, late night talk shows, a test pattern, and the morning news magazines before he blearily opened his eyes again at a rather painful ache in his left shoulder. The morning news was on and he blinked sleepily at it, shifting slightly off his shoulder. More about Seattle. These news people really had a fascination with that town. Something about a hospital.

"Mmmhhh," he said in comment at that until the face of a rather harried-looking doctor appeared on the screen, objecting to the insinuation that her surgery was a failure. The name "Dr. Clair Holmes" flashed across the screen. It floated through his mind in search of something to connect with. The word "neurosurgeon" also floated lazily through his mind in search of something to connect with.

And connect they did, causing him to sit bolt upright despite a shooting pain in his back. "Clair _Holmes_!" he gasped. He threw himself forward, ending up on his knees in front of the television, his hands reaching out to grasp either side of the device. "I've found you..." he said, despite the fact that the television was now briefing him on the weather. "Clair Holmes... Seattle, Washington... yes...." He stared at the screen until he could see the green and red and yellow phosphor-dots. "I know where to find you, now," he whispered, a smile spreading across his face.


	2. Surprise

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 2 - Surprise **

By Yumegari and LRH

The next day was made better only by the fact that security had managed to screen most of the reporters out. The kid was no better, and there was signs of possible paralysis in his face and neck as well, which ground relentlessly at Clair. She picked up the phone twice, meaning to call the research center that had her drug and tell them she was going to use it, like it or not, but she didn't. She also didn't meet with the boy's family when they came to visit him, bringing their own media circus along. She did her job as quietly as she could until her shift ended and she could leave. Grateful, she drove home through the pre-rush-hour traffic, turning into smaller and smaller streets until she reached the lane that led her home. With a sigh of relief, she pulled into her side of the garage as if it were sanctuary, and went inside. She dropped her briefcase on the kitchen table, shed her coat into a chair, and turned around to go into the living room.

She stopped at the sight that greeted her. The curtains had been drawn, leaving the room dim, but she could still see at least the shape of the large individual who sat on her couch, elbows propped on his knees and fingers folded before his face. The big black longcoat was something of a dead giveaway, as was the sleek black hair. He didn't move, but said, only, strangely slowly, "Hello, Clair."

She stopped dead, one hand finding the frame of the arch for support. "Octavius," she said dully. "What are you doing here?"

He didn't move, but spoke with that same strange, deliberate slowness. "I came to find you. You knew this would happen, didn't you?"

She nodded stiffly. "Eventually. I"m not as good as hiding as the FBI would like me to be." Her hand was only a few inches from the light switch, and she flipped it, throwing the room into warm lamp-light, banishing every shadow except for the one sitting on her sofa.

His eyes narrowed behind the shades at the light, but otherwise he didn't move With the lights on, she noticed he looked almost exactly the same as he had the last time she'd seen him, except that his face seemed drawn. His actuators were no-where to be found, but propped against his knee was what she could have sworn was a black walking stick. He regarded her silently before speaking again, just as slowly. "Oh, you hid very well. That isn't what I figured you knew would happen."

"You want another treatment, don't you?" she asked. "You've done all the damage again." She examined him cautiously.

"So very convenient for you to stand here and blame me for this," he replied, anger speeding his words a little and letting show a slight slurring. "I'll have you know ... I was fine until ... two days ago."

"What happened two days ago?" she asked, pushing away from the doorway and stepping into the room.

"Hnnn..." That thoughtful sound again. His speech resumed its slow, deliberate pace. "Two days ago, during an ... encounter with the arachnid, I experienced some sort of ... seizure. When I came round again, I realized I'd lost most of the function to my right side, and that my vision was blurred." His tone grew bitter. "Now I can barely speak properly, I can barely walk, much less fight. I'll be dead within a month if this continues, by whatever cause."

"It sounds like a stoke," she said concernedly, coming over to his side to look closely at his face. "You're lucky to be alive." She reached up to take his glasses off, so she could compare his pupils. "How's your sense of balance?"

He hissed in pain as she removed the sunglasses, but attempted to open his eyes again, the left one making it further open than the right. The pupils were all but invisible against the black of his irises and unnaturally large. "It's ... serviceable. Only just." His right hand dropped and hung draped over his knee, almost useless.

She checked the dilation and put the glasses back. Her fingers walked down his face, checking muscle tone, and then she picked up his right hand, moving the fingers. "You walked in? How did you get here like this?"

The muscle tone had survived somewhat, mainly because the incident had been so recent. His right eye drooped almost halfway shut, though, and she could tell the loss of mobility to his face was what slurred his words. "If you must know, I took a flight here to Seattle and then a cab here to your residence," he replied drily. "The flight was interminable and the cabdriver only spoke Swahili and reeked of cigarettes from a mile away."

She got a sudden image him in coach, sitting between a snoring fat man and a woman with a squalling infant and had to bite her lip. "Nice to know that our airport security is on top of things. You left the, eh, the arms in New York? Here, squeeze my hand." She put her right hand into his. "As hard as you can. I need to test its strength."

"Of course I did, that's how I managed to get here. Without them or the goggles, I'm barely recognizable, after all," he replied, the fingers of his right hand curling around hers and squeezing, barely tightly enough to be felt. He looked down at it, brows meeting.

Her brow furrowed. "I want to get you in for an MRI," she said, trying to figure out how she would do that. She pinched his fingertip. "Can you feel that? Pain or pressure?"

"Hnnn. Do tell me how you plan to do that." He watched as she pinched the tip of his index finger. "Only just," he said. "It's dulled."

"If they didn't recognize you in a New York airport," she pointed out. "They're not likely to recognize you in a Seattle hospital. Two days is a dangerous amount of time to leave a stroke untreated." She frowned, setting his hand back on his knee. "Can you stand? Come on, I want to get you help as soon as I can."

He growled quietly, the first time she'd heard him do that since she found him in her house, and grasped the walking stick with his left hand, hauling himself to his feet a little unsteadily. He shook her hands from him and started for the door, slowly, right leg dragging slightly, his right arm curled inward a little so as to avoid it hanging and looking ridiculous. He made a shuffling progress toward the door, hunched forward slightly in a manner that told her he was far too used to counterbalancing the weight of those actuators.

Watching his halting gate anxiously, she scribbled a note on the whiteboard by the garage door Thing came up, working late and opened it for him, going out to empty her cluttered passenger seat. She pushed the seat back as far as it would go, and stepped back to dig her keys out of her purse when her cell phone rang from the dash of the car.

He paused outside the car, regarding it and her cellular, slowly bringing his right hand up to rest on the roof of the vehicle.

She looked at the phone as well, then grabbed it, checked the number of the caller, and switched it off, her face paling slightly. "Come on," she said shortly, getting in the driver's side. "Just get in. Two _hours _was too long to leave this, you need treatment."

He stuffed himself into the car, noticing that at least the seat was far back enough for his long legs and his walking stick, and settled in, watching her as she climbed in, as well.

She pulled out and headed back into the city, considering their options as they crossed the long bridges. "We can admit you as a John Deer. If I'm pushing you through admissions, they're not going to ask too many questions."

"Mmm," he said, nodding. "It would probably be preferable to using my name. I was wondering how you planned to circumvent that little difficulty." He rubbed his right shoulder absently and watched the buildings go by.

"I think even here they'd catch that," she agreed, thinking as she took the familiar exit. "Just look as lost and pathetic as possible."

He made a sound that could possibly be mistaken for a laugh. "Lost and pathetic? I'll try..."

"I'm not going to be able to do all of the work myself, and someone will probably ask you a lot of questions. Just, don't answer them." She shot him a glance. "You're good at that, if I remember right."

"A dig..., probably one I deserve, I suppose," he answered vaguely, still watching the scenery. "I'm at least lucid enough to maintain secrecy, if that's what you're wondering."

"Good." She pulled into the hospital's parking garage and parked. Getting out, she ran over to the elevator and got one of the wheelchairs that was always left there, bringing it back to his side of the car. "This will be easier for you," she offered.

"Nonsense," he harrumphed, hauling himself slowly out of the car. "I'll do just fine on my own--" he lost his balance and nearly fell, but caught himself just in time on the frame of the chair. He breathed for a moment. "On second thought..." he admitted, and seated himself, the walking stick between his knees and his right arm curled on his lap.

She frowned, a little surprised. She hadn't expected him to accept. It was more than a little worrying. Grabbing her purse and looping it over her shoulder, she pushed him into the elevator, taking him up to the main floor. Nora in admissions looked at her in surprise when she came to the desk. "I thought you went home, Clair. Governor Roth and his crowd are still here."

Clair shook her head, getting an admissions sheet and beginning to fill it out. "I found a guy on my way home. I haven't been able to get much from him, but I think he's had a stroke. I'm admitting him as a John Deer."

Nora looked over her shoulder at Octavius, then whispered loudly to Clair. "You brought him here yourself? He looks _dangerous_, Clair. And he's like eight times as big as you are."

_Dangerous? Oh, if only she knew.._. But it was advantageous to keep up the act. Lost and pathetic. "Nnnh," He said, letting his eyes slip shut and his head drop forward. "Miss... where am I?" he mumbled. Truth be told, it wasn't as much of an act as Clair would be led to believe. He was becoming terribly tired again.

"He's really out of it," Clair assured her friend, glancing at Octavius. "I just want to get him upstairs for an examination and an MRI. Is there an empty bed anywhere?"

Nora checked her charts and nodded. "Room 719's free, and the MRI's not taken for another hour, if you want to get that done first. Who do you want for attending?"

Clair thought about it. "Dr. Heights. When he's available." The old doctor wouldn't notice too much if one of his scheduled visits was missing. "I'm not on the clock, so I'll stay with him for now."

She waved away Nora's offer of an orderly, and pushed Octavius into the other elevator, heading up. She leaned against the wall. "So far so good."

"Good," he muttered. "If I'd thought I'd have a career as an actor, I wouldn't have become a scientist."

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and Clair rolled him out, turning left and heading for the MRI lab. She'd hoped to find it empty, but three techs were lounging around, waiting for something to do. "I know this scan isn't scheduled," she said, drawing the most senior aside. "But it's a rush job. If my diagnosis is right, his stroke was two days ago. I need to make a definite assessment before I can treat it, and time is of the essence."

"Got it, Doc," nodded the tech. He smiled at Octavius, and took his wheelchair. "We'll take good care of you, fella."

"Will you, now?" Octavius muttered. "I think I'll be the judge of that."

The tech just smiled and wheeled him into the examining room. Inside the examining room stood a machine that looked like nothing more than a huge, white metal cylinder with a table inside the hole, sticking out like a tongue. This was the structure to which the tech brought Octavius, turning the wheelchair so that he faced the machine at something of 45-degree angle to the table, locking its wheels. Then the tech circled round the chair and tried to help its occupant to stand, receiving a growl of "Don't touch me," and something of a shove, though since it was done with his right hand, the tech didn't go far. Leaning heavily on the stick, Octavius patted a hand along the table's length before forcing himself up onto it and lying down, his head poking into the circle.

"All righty," the tech said cheerfully. "Looks like we're under orders to take pictures of the inside of your head, which shouldn't be too hard as long as you lie perfectly still. Otherwise it'll blur the image and we'll be here all day. Don't think ya want that, huh?" The tech handed him a small device with a button on it. "Call button. Just press it if you start getting claustrophobic. You'd be surprised how many people start panicking in this thing." There was a clicking and the table retracted further into the hole until he was inside it up to his waist. "It's gonna be kinda noisy, just to let you know."

Clair watched through the windows, leaning over a junior tech's shoulder so she would be able to see the monitor when it started receiving images. She had her suspicions about the nature of Octavius' stroke, but she needed the MRI to confirm it before she started any treatment.

As he lay inside the machine, clunking and banging noises could be heard, as of metal slamming against metal. Movement of parts, more banging, all at different speeds and for different durations. It started to get terribly dull, as he'd already ascertained its workings in the first minute or so. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, after all, was pretty self-explanatory, resonant waves as a result of the striking together of magnets created an image of whatever was caught in the crossfire of these waves. Ho, hum. His eyes closed and he started to drift off to sleep.

Clair stared avidly at the screen as the images began to come in, pale-glowing patterns. The tech whistled. "Where'd you _find _this guy, Dr. Holmes? He's got the densest structure I've ever seen. And look at these bright spots, there." He pointed to the cerebellum and the parietal lobe, which stood out immediately. "Some hyperactivity there, and scarring." He looked out the window at Octavius. "Weird."

Clair tapped her fingers discouragingly on the desk. "We're not here to speculate. None of that is threatening his life. The stroke is. Now where, ah, there is it." The clot finally showed, bright white and nestled more or less where she'd expected it; between the motor and sensory cortexes on Octavius's left side.

"Textbook," she said casually, although the sight of it made her rather anxious. It was big, and the area of atrophied tissue around it was extensive. "An ischemic stroke in between the cortexes. I can put him on t-PA to dissolve the clot, although there's not much I can do for the existing damage. Bring him out. I've got a bed for him up on 7."

The tech looked though the window. "Looks like he dozed off in there," he observed before leaving the room to extend the table-like surface and prod the patient awake. It took a moment, but eventually Octavius came out of it and blinked up at the tech, his expression growing sour as he recognized the person standing over him. He forced himself up with one hand and rather shakily to his feet. As it had been doing for the last two days, this served to do nothing more than anger him. To think, Otto Octavius, the feared Doctor Octopus, was now stuck in a hospital in Seattle and hobbling about like an eighty-year-old. It was limiting, and anything that limited Otto Octavius only got him angry. He'd come to expect himself to accept no limits, nothing that could possibly stand in his way. He killed or destroyed what stood in his way and now that thing was the one thing he couldn't destroy--his own body. It was an incredibly irritating thought. A thought that created a mood that had him seated in the wheelchair and growling at the tech for even coming near him. The tech, for his part, delivered the patient to Clair as quickly as he could.

Clair took the handles of the wheelchair and pushed him back down the hall towards the elevators. "If you don't tone down the "Don't mess with me" attitude," she whispered. "Someone is going to recognize you. We have news here too, you know."

"You're the one who wanted me to become more human," he harrumphed a little cryptically.

"And you're very human at the moment. Giant blood clot and all. You should have gone for treatment immediately. It was an ischemic stroke," she explained. "Right between your sensory and motor cortexes. Not as bad as it could have been, but still dangerous."

"Where would I have gone, you tell me that," he grumbled. "Any hospital in New York I could have walked into would have probably had me shot on sight, oath or no oath."

"You still don't trust people, I see," she said, calling the elevator. "You could have tried just this, coming in as a John Deer. Without your arms, they probably wouldn't shoot first anyway." She shook her head. "Which may be the oddest sentence I've said today."

He was about to ask who would believe a person checking himself in as a John Doe, but he realized a little belatedly that he could have simply feigned amnesia. This angered him further that he hadn't been able to think of it himself, and he simply growled something about hindsight being 20/20....

"I know the feeling," she said as the elevator arrived. She punched the buttons for the sixth and seventh floors, and they got off at the sixth, which was quiet and nearly abandoned. "We're leaving," she explained, heading to the other set of elevators at the opposite side of the floor. "One of the techs noticed more oddities about your MRI than the stroke, and I don't want to still be here if anyone asks questions. I just need to get the t-PA from downstairs."

"You insisted I come here, and now you're insisting I go?...." there was a pause. "What oddities?" he asked, sounding vaguely curious. He turned to look back at her.

"You needed the MRI," she defended herself. "It could have been a hemorrhagic stroke, which would have required a whole other treatment. I didn't intend for you to stay here, at any rate." She took a corner, then another without answering his second question, and called the other elevator.

"I grow tired of this runaround," he grumbled, facing forward again with the air of one who knows that, for the time being, anyway, he'd been defeated. But only this once.

"I'm just trying not to say I told you so," she said as they went down, back to the ground floor. "There's a lot of damage in your parietal lobe and your cerebellum, the parts responsible for spatial orientation and coordination."

"Is there, now?" came his reply. "Stands to reason..." But he said nothing further, gazing off into the distance in thought.

She sighed, listening to the rumble of the slow elevator. "If any of this ever gets public, I'm in deep. I'm going to heal you, when I failed with the senator's son."

"You didn't simply use your serum?" he asked, only half-interestedly, as it appeared he was dozing again.

"It's not been approved for public use yet," she said disgustedly. "Testing and retesting, trying to see what its limits are. I had to use tried-and-true methods on him, and look where it got him! His Wernick's is still so messed up that he can't recognize his own mother."

"'Not approved for public use?'" Octavius echoed, snapping awake and turning to look at her. "That's it? You let a little thing like bureaucracy stand in your way? Let it _limit _you? You allow it to stop you doing what you're obviously meant to do?"

"Hey, I'm under observation every minute I'm inside a patient's head," she snapped back. "If I used it, I'd lose my license and never be allowed to help anyone, ever again. _That _would stop me from doing what I am meant to do. And until an hour ago, I was in hiding. I couldn't even bring up a controversial issue, because it might get my picture in the paper. I haven't been able to participate in the research on my serum, because someone convinced the FBI that my life was in danger, and it would be too much of a _risk _to let Dr. Clair Holmes work on the Clair Watson Project."

He shook his head and turned to look forward again. "You've already failed if you allow others to control you in such a fashion."

"It's the price I pay for living a conventional life," she shrugged. Then she smiled. "But it's not like I'm not doing any research at all on it. I'm just not part of the project, and I can't publish."

"What, you conduct it independently?" he asked.

"Mmhm," she nodded. "No more human testing, of course, but I've been working on refining the process. You can't weed out the side effects, though." She grimaced, remembering that. "They're just what happens when you inject what amounts to a stimulant straight into the brain. And I've been seeing how drastic a cure it can effect." She grinned excitedly. "I haven't found a limit yet."

"Samples can only do so much. What will you do when continuation of your testing necessitates a human subject?" He asked as the elevator doors opened, revealing the first floor.

"I've got one, don't I?" she murmured, smiling as she pushed him out to the waiting room. "Wait here," she said politely. "I'll go get that medicine for you, and I'll be right back." She nodded to the on-duty as she passed, and got a nurse to let her into the ER's meds locker. Which was technically against the rules, but it was a rule broken so often as to be unremarkable. She collected the vial of t-PA and a box of disposable syringes and was back out in only a few minutes. Nora was curious, but Clair put her off, explaining that the homeless man (for so the John Deer had turned out to be, in a more lucid moment, she explained) wanted to go to a different hospital, and she was giving him a ride.

Octavius sat in the lobby and waited as Clair ran off to fetch medication. Crowds. He always hated crowds. It made him scowl just thinking about it, and he did so, his head dropping slightly as it had a tendency to do when he was in a very heavy scowl, the lower half of his face disappearing behind the opened but still high collar of his longcoat. A blond fellow with a cast on his arm walked past, glanced at him, then did a horrified double-take. "HOLY SHIT!" he screamed in a New York accent, pointing at Octavius with his good hand. "IT'S DOCTOR OCTOPUS!"

The entire lobby fell dead silent.

Clair's heart skipped, and she ran into the waiting room, hoping to keep all hell from breaking loose. The last thing Octavius needed right now was to be taken into custody. She couldn't help him there.

Octavius' grip tightened on his walking stick and his eyes widened. He leaned back in the wheelchair. He seriously considered making a run for it. His eyes darted about the room, taking in the exits, their distance, the amount of time it would take to reach said exits, the probability of having to kill anyone on the way--

"Idiot," the large, dark-haired man next to the blond grumbled, smacking the other against the back of his head. "What the hell would Doctor Octopus be doing in a hospital in Seattle?"

"Dude, look at that scowl! That longcoat thing! That's Doctor Octopus, I'm tellin' ya!"

"Oh yeah, if that's Doc Ock, where are his tentacles, huh?" the second demanded, dragging his friend away. "Shoulda locked you in the mental ward when we had the chance, ya headcase..."

Clair breathed a little easier as she joined Octavius, watching to make sure the loud-mouth left with no more incident. "Sorry about that," she said in as close to a normal voice as she could manage, handing him the brown paper bag with the medication in it. "You get some loonies in every waiting room, just like old magazines. If it's any consolation, I don't think you look anything like that madman."

"Mmm," Octavius said, letting his eyes droop as he breathed a barely concealed sigh. "Heh... coulda bin famoush, there," he slurred as Clair wheeled him from the lobby. However, as they drew closer to her car, he turned and fixed her with a dubious stare. "Madman?'" he echoed.

"All I could think of," she said, hiding a smile poorly. "Except for maybe 'evil genius,' and that just seemed over the top." She opened his car door, but let him get in himself while she put the wheelchair back where she'd found it. "That was close, though."

"Too close," he said quietly, shifting into a more comfortable position in the seat. He looked at her as she climbed back in and blinked slowly. "As it appears that I am, for the moment, at your mercy," he said, his speech sounding a little fuzzy, "Where do you plan on taking me, now?"

"Home," she said, starting the car and looking over her shoulder to back out of the spot. "I have my lab there, in the back."

"Mmm," was his noncommittal reply. The runaround seemed to have tired him, and he fell silent, gazing out the window again. Things seemed strangely disconnected again, almost as though he expected himself to awaken any moment from what felt so much like a dream. He idly scratched at his hand, only a twinge registering in his mind that he barely felt it. The scenery flowed past him as she drove. His eyelids drooped further. Things felt so cottony as of late.

Clair glanced over at him as she drove. If he fell asleep, all the better. He probably needed it. She shook her head, baring her teeth in a silent laugh. Surreal. This was too surreal for words. Just like last time.

After a moment, his head slipped to the side to rest against the car door, stray strands of hair creating unsteady black lines along his face. That, in and of itself wouldn't have been evidence enough that he was asleep until a barely audible sound made itself heard, a quiet snoring.

She took her exit and drove straight home, noting with relief that the two-car garage was still empty as she parked on her side of it. Considering, she leaned over and tapped his shoulder. "Come on, wake up, we're here."

All she received for her troubles was a muffled "MMfh," and continued motionlessness on his part.

She thumbed the switch to close the garage doors and came around to his side, opening his door, careful not to let him fall out, since he was leaning against it. Shaking his shoulder, she persisted. "Come on, Doctor Octavius. I need you to wake up. I can't leave you out here in the garage, and I sure can't carry you."

"Mmmfhh.," he said again, and his eyes fluttered open behind the sunglasses. "Nnn. Damn," he muttered, sitting upright. "Last thing I need, falling asleep like that," he mumbled, his words barely intelligible. He managed to remove himself and his walking stick from the car and shuffle to the door.

She shut the car door and slipped into the house ahead of him, turning on lights and leading him down the hall to her dim, cluttered lab. One wall held a storage unit, and incubator, an autoclave, and a number of small cages; mostly empty, but one, the door open, held a sleeping cat. The rest of the room was filled with a long, stainless table nearly buried, by papers at one end, and by a powerful microscope, a long-limbed contraption with tiny appendages that resembled a spider bolted to the table, and its accompanying junk at the other. A long, low sofa filled the remainder of the space. She shoved another cat off the sofa and shooed it out the door, gesturing for him to sit down.

He dropped heavily onto it and looked about. Spotting the device with the limbs, he nodded toward it. "What's that?"

"It's a micro-surgery set up. With that, I don't need to wear those actuators of yours." She shook her shoulders to chase away the physical memory. "Which is good, seeing as I don't have a set of my own, which would really have set back my research."

He tilted his head to one side for a moment, and then hauled himself to his feet again, shuffling slowly toward the device in question. Too slowly. But he wasn't going to let that bother him for the moment, it wasn't as though there wasn't time. He stopped before it and leaned on the table, reaching out his hand to run it along one of the limbs.

She stood next to him, looking at the set-up proudly. She'd had to pull a lot of strings to get this, and she hadn't had very many to begin with. "You control it here," she explained, indicating a complicated set of joysticks and levers. "It's not as precise as the actuators were, but it's good enough for both the cellular and the surgical work I do."

His fingers ran along some of the controls and he gazed at it for a very long time. Almost as though he were blind (and with the sunglasses and walking stick, the image was a hard one to dispel), he ran hid fingers over almost every inch of the machine, as though committing it to memory. He mumbled something under his breath.

"Did you say something?" she asked, turning away to open the t-PA and read its dosage. She hadn't dealt with a stroke in a while- they usually went to the attending surgeon, not her. And dosing almost always went to a nurse, anyway. "Do you know how much you weigh?" she asked clinically.

"Hnn... no," he said. Ignoring the second question, he looked up. "Microsurgery.... Why do you need surgical tools if you do no human testing?" he asked, his left eyebrow quirking.

For an answer, she reached out and scratched the ear of the cat in the open cage. It shifted and woke up, uncurling to reveal a mis-shapen face and a missing eye. "This is Frankenstein," she said, lifting him down, revealing that he was a tripod as well. "I found him about two years ago. He'd been hit by a car and mangled very badly. I brought him in to die in comfort, because, you know, sometimes there's just nothing you can do. But he pulled through, physically. He lay in my kitchen, in a coma, for about six weeks. The vet said to just let him go, but I couldn't do that. So I tried the Zombie Juice. And as you can see, he's quite alright now."

"Hnnn..." He gazed at the cat for a moment. He'd never really liked cats, or any animals for that matter, but the fact that it was alive thanks to the Zombie Juice was something whose implications couldn't be ignored. "You've at least one more successful test subject, it seems," he murmured.

"Frank here was clinically brain-dead when I finally tried the Juice," she said, rubbing his chin. He arched up, almost over-balancing himself out of her arms, and she set him down. She looked up at Octavius. "I do need to know how much you weigh, or I'll get this dosage wrong."

"Mm?" he said, looking up from watching the cat make its way across the floor. "Two twenty-three," he muttered absently, his attention wandering back to the microsurgery device.

"Alright," she said to herself, running her finger down the dosage chart, then drawing the correct amount into a syringe. "It's a good thing that you're used to needles."

"Would it really have changed things if I wasn't?" he asked, looking up at her from where he was still examining the device. The cat rubbed against his leg, but it was easily ignored, as it rubbed his right leg.

"Not in the slightest," she said reasonably. "It's one an hour for seven hours, though. And that's before I can get started on actually helping you. This is just to dissolve the blood clot." She checked her watch. "If you're ready, I need you to take off your coat and roll up a sleeve."

Seven hours. He opened his mouth to speak. A part of him wanted to object, to stop her making demands, to tell her just what happened to people who treated him this way, but ... there was no point to such sound and fury. It really did signify nothing. In his condition, and without his actuators, he had no way of backing up what he said. All it would succeed in doing was insuring that she refused to give him the serum. And that would insure death.

And he did not want to die. Not yet. Not... again.

He swallowed whatever he was going to say next and lifted his hand to the collar of his longcoat, slipping the button free. And the next, and the next. One-handed, it was slow going. But he persisted and, once the coat was undone, he shrugged it from his shoulders, catching it and dropping it on the table. He slowly unbuttoned and rolled the right sleeve.

She took his hand and pulled his arm towards her gently, finding the vein in the hollow of his elbow with practiced ease and sliding the needle in, injecting the t-PA and withdrawing it. She tossed the needle into a "sharps" container and let go of his hand. "So. We get to wait. Do you want to sleep? It's a great couch."

He stood over her, looking down. He was nearer to her now than he had been for quite some time, and strangely, all that meant was that he got a closer-up view of her grey eyes. One didn't often see grey eyes. He eventually tore his gaze from her and looked at the couch, upon which at least one cat was curled. It looked good. In this condition, all he wanted to do was sleep. Sleeping didn't require movement. Taking up his stick again, he shuffled toward the couch. Damn this shuffling when he used to cover ground at forty miles an hour. He dropped heavily onto the couch again, and the cat opened one sleepy, disinterested eye and looked at him.

'Don't mind the cats," she said, plucking this one off the couch and sending it on its way. "There are only the three, though they're underfoot often enough to seem like more than that. Just give them a shove, and they'll leave off. Except for Frank. Nothing discourages him." Sure enough, the three-legged cat jumped back up onto the couch with Octavius. "If you need anything, I'll be around the house. Um..." She appeared to be searching for words. "If you hear anyone else, stay quiet, alright?"

He lay down on the cushions, pushing a pillow-like thing under his head a little better. "Wouldn't do to let them know you've got Doctor Octopus for a houseguest, hmm?" he mumbled. The three-legged cat lurched its way along the cushions until it found a spot next to his head, then curled up, purring. He didn't bother pushing it away, knowing it would just come back again. He'd be shooing that cat out of his space all day and night. Might as well just let it stay. He sighed and closed his eyes.

Clair watched him a moment longer, set a timer for an hour, then left, shutting the door quietly behind her, and went to find something to busy herself with. She eventually settled with a book in her living room, but she found herself listening to the clock tick in the silent house. Unconsciously, she rubbed at the line of tiny scars down her back and waited for the timer to ring.

The cat purred, looking at Octavius with its good eye slitted nearly shut. He'd never liked animals, but that purring sound... it was ... calming. He sighed a second time, longer, and his consciousness drifted, sinking down into sleep, where his snores sounded suspiciously like the purring of the cat who lay next to him, its eyes now closed.


	3. Confrontation

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 3: Confrontation**

By Yumegari and LRH (Beta-read by Skylanth)

The alarm went off, shrill and strident enough to wake up a heavy sleeper, which Clair intermittently was. She set aside her ignored book and went back to the lab, aware that this pattern was going to get tiresome.

Frank looked up at her with a soft _brrrt _sound as she entered the lab, but his was the only movement, as the couch's occupant still snored away softly. She decided not to wake him if she could avoid it, drawing the dose quietly and kneeling next to the couch. She took his right arm, as she had before, and slid the needle in.

The fingers of his right hand curled, but what was more alarming was the fingers of his left hand finding themselves around her throat in the blink of an eye. He stared at her, eyes unfocussed, before he slowly came to the present. His hand released its grip. "Don't do that," he said.

She held very still for a moment until her heart fell back out of her throat. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I didn't want to wake you. You need the sleep."

He sighed and looked away. "I'm not a very heavy sleeper," he muttered. "Either way I'll be woken up."

"I'll remember that," she assured him, rubbing her throat. She still held the syringe, its contents undelivered. She lifted it towards him. "May I?"

"Mm," he said, nodding. He seemed to already be fighting sleep again. The cat watched her with his one eye.

She made the injection quickly. "I'm going to make dinner," she said, standing up and tossing the needle away. "Do you want some? I have better options than soup and pickles, and I won't burn it this time."

"Mmm," he said again, nodding again, his eyes closed. Part of him wondered why he was so sleepy all of the sudden. Was it the injections? The purring cat? The fact that things tired him so easily these last few days? The fact that sleep presented a better alternative to lurching and shuffling about one-handed? Six arms reduced to one.

At least she knew not to poke him with needles in his sleep any more.

She was about to ask him another question when the garage door rattled, announcing the arrival of her house-mate and boyfriend. She fought down a bout of panic as she heard his car stop and his door slam, and she ducked out of the lab with a final "Not a sound," directed equally at Octavius and Frank, shutting the door firmly behind her.

"Hey, welcome home?" she said to Brandon, her face carefully surprised. "You're home early."

He gave her an odd look. "Did you lose your cell phone? Some guy, some Agent Lynley's been calling for you all day. Wouldn't tell me what it's about, but he wants you to call him back. Sounded pretty angry. He's left like a dozen messages."

"I just had it turned off," she said, pulling it out of her pocket now and turning it on. "Listen, I've got an experiment running in the lab. I need to get back to it. Could you make dinner? I'm starving for something stir-fry."

"After I grade my papers, 'kay?" he said, smiling indulgently. "You're not making another Franken-Kitty, are you? One's enough, don't you think?"

"No worries," she said, going back to the lab, slipping through the door and shutting it firmly behind her.

Frank looked at her again as she entered the lab, but Octavius merely made some kind of a muffled "Mmfh..." sound and shifted sleepily.

She turned the door's little lock and went over to turn on the TV in the corner. Quietly, but enough to excuse any noises Octavius might make. "Now what?" she asked Frank. The cat merely squinted at her and twitched his ears contentedly before laying his head on Octavius's shoulder and apparently falling asleep.

She had known that Brandon would be coming home, but she'd expected him to stay on campus for another four hours, at least. All her plans today had been made on the fly, none of them well-thought out, but she had counted on having to actively _hide _Octavius for as few hours as possible. Brandon generally avoided her lab as if it were the principal's office, but he did occasionally feel the need to explore in there.

* * *

All around him spread a huge library, its walls bearing shelves of books up to the ceilings. Several more standing shelves adorning the silent landscape like standing stones in a Celtic monument. All was quiet, light filtering in through high windows, illuminating dust specks in the air. A mosaic of gold and muted colours covered the floor, but he couldn't quite tell what it represented, if anything. 

It didn't matter. A desk piled high with books loomed before him and, as he drew closer, he could see them a little more clearly, enough to tell they were terribly old. His interest was piques immediately, and he circled round the desk to sit in the high-backed leather chair behind it. His actuators curled round him, draping downward to rest on the floor. He reached out and picked up one of the books, and could feel the leather binding under his fingers, see the warm light shine on the gilt edges. He opened it, scanned over a full-page illustration, a woodcut print of an octopus of all things, and focused on the text-

One actuator shot forward and tore the book from his startled hands, another joining it to shred the tome to pieces. He scowled in irritation. There must be some kind of a malfunction. He concentrated harder on their position in space, letting it come to bearing in his mind, and picked up another book.

They didn't even wait for him to open it this time before yanking it away and tearing it to pieces. Desperately, he reached for a third. They beat him to it and shredded that one, too. Paper scraps floated around him as he leaned forward, reaching with only his left hand this time, seeing the actuators dive into the stacks of books and destroy them, their sharp claws rending paper and wood, leather and cloth, scraps and pieces surrounding him in a dizzy flurry, the shelves and walls and windows darkening, fading into the distance-

* * *

His eyes flew open and he gasped, his left hand reaching out before he could stop it. But the dream had fled and he found himself staring at the ceiling of Clair's back-room lab, his hand reached out ridiculously. Slowly, catching his breath, he curled the fingers and pulled his arm inward again. 

Clair looked over from her perch on a high stool where she was watching TV, then jumped down and came over to his side. "Are you in pain?" she asked in a near silent whisper, glancing at the door.

"No," he breathed, still breathing hard. "No, I'm all right." He looked at her, a little confused at the worried expression on her face.

She interpreted his confusion. "My boyfriend is home early. I didn't expect him for another couple of hours. Obviously, he doesn't know that you're here, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Boyfriend, hm?" he murmured. He smiled an odd, inscrutable smile, and closed his eyes again. "I'll try not to bring the place down, then," he mumbled drily.

"Don't fall back to sleep," she cautioned. "We've got another injection in about ten-"

"Hey!" interrupted Brandon's voice from outside the locked door. "Dinner's ready, if you haven't forgotten that you need food, too." It sounded like an old argument, and was followed by retreating footsteps.

Otto watched her through lidded eyes, one eyebrow raised.

She shrugged, "I'll be right back," she whispered, and unlocked the door, slipping through it. She served herself a plate of the stir fry and grabbed a fork, before nodding a thanks to Brandon.

"What, you're not going to eat out here with me?" he asked, mocking hurt.

"You don't want me to," she improvised. "I'm doing grey-matter experiments and I didn't wash my hands."

"Uck," he said delicately. "Get back to your lair, you. Begone."

She smiled and took the plate back to her lab, balancing it on one hand to open the door just enough to get by. Octavius watched her do this, as did the cat who had, in that presumptuous manner of cats everywhere, curled up on his chest. He didn't appear to mind the cat's presence, though as he ignored it and watched Clair squeeze her way back into the room, instead. She cleared a space for the plate on the end of the table nearest the couch, shoving a heap of papers higher onto a shelf on the wall. She set the fork on Octavius's side of the plate and retreated back to her stool, apparently interested in the show that was nearly over on the tv. "Oh, don't eat much," she cautioned quietly, turning back. "You're going under today, remember."

He felt the vaguest stab of annoyance at her blase attitude, but didn't have much energy to pursue it any further than that. Instead, he heaved himself up off the couch, his hair in a disheveled tangle around his head and shoulders, and found a chair , pushing it in front of the table and sitting on it. The TV caught his gaze as he slipped a forkful of stir-fry into his mouth and chewed carefully.

Out in the hallway, the phone rang suddenly. They could hear Brandon answer it, and then suddenly, before Clair could reach it, the door swung open. "Clair," he said, looking around for her in the clutter. "It's for ... Who the hell are you?"

Octavius stopped, a fork-full lifted to his face. Instinct would be to silence this "Brandon," but there was nothing to silence him with. No actuators. He dropped the fork, pushed his hands against the table, and stood, the chair scraping backward. His eyes fixed on the man with the phone in his hand.

Clair pushed forward, getting between the two. "Brandon, don't do anything. He's just a patient." But Brandon wasn't listening. A look of horror had come over his face. "It's that, that freak from New York," he said, reaching out to grab her and pull her behind him. "The guy you're hiding from." He was shorter by a handspan than Octavius, and softly built, but he stood defiantly between them. Clair hit him on the arm.

"He's been here all afternoon, you idiot," she insisted. "He's not going to hurt me, and if he were, he would have done it by now."

Octavius stared at this young man. A hard, angry stare. He remained motionless and could almost feel the actuators that would have snaked ceaselessly around him. But he could still stare.

Brandon backed up, pushing Clair out of the room. "Get out of here, Clair," he said gruffly, not taking his eyes off of Octavius. Apparently remembering the phone in his hand, he brought it up to his face. "Agent Lynley, could you please call the police? Dr. Oc-"

Clair yelped and grabbed the phone from his hand, yanking the cord out. "You moron!" she seethed at Brandon. "I told you, he's a patient! He's not going to hurt me!"

Had this not been such a grave situation, had he been a lighter-hearted individual, Octavius would have snickered at the fact that this Brandon just didn't seem to get it. A strange sort of calm came over him and he sat back down again, carefully, and resumed eating. The Agent Lynley who had been on the phone didn't seem to matter very much, and it looked as though Clair was perfectly capable of handling the situation with her boyfriend. He ordinarily would have been long gone with a trail of bodies behind him by now. It made him wonder what else this new condition he was in had changed.

Brandon stared back and forth between Octavius and Clair, puzzled. "What's going on?" he asked Clair, not relaxing his guard towards the dark doctor. She scowled at him and tried to push past him back into the lab.

"He came to me to ask for help. I'm a doctor, Brandon, I couldn't tell him that I wouldn't help him."

"Why you?" Brandon asked. He turned to Octavius. "Why Clair? Why'd you come all the way out here? Aren't there any doctors in New York? And how'd you find her, anyway?"

"Because she's done it before, because she's the only one who's done it, yes, but none who have her knowledge, and the morning news," came the slow reply as he picked up the abandoned fork-full. "Now, if you'll excuse me..."

Brandon looked hopelessly lost now, but he let Clair past at last. "Get out of here," she told him when he continued to just stand there and stare. "It's time for the next injection," she said to Octavius, getting the vial and a new needle, filling the former. "I don't suppose you know how to find a vein? You could do this yourself."

He looked up at her with an expression that clearly said, _You have got to be kidding me. _Then that expression cleared and he shifted his gaze to the needle and vial. "I haven't tried." He reached up to pluck the syringe from her hands, regarding it. Then he shifted his attention to his right arm, which lay on the table as though it belonged to someone else. Doggedly, he rolled the sleeve again and peered at the faint tracery of blue lines he saw.

She grabbed the tools back. "If you haven't tried, this is not the stuff to practice with. You don't want a plasminogen activator in your muscle tissue, if you miss." She drew the dose and made the injection quickly, soothing the agitated site with her thumb.

She looked over her shoulder at Brandon, who hadn't moved. "Was that really Agent Lynley on the phone?"

He nodded dumbly, and she sighed deeply through her nose, anxiety creasing her forehead.

Octavius took a deep breath, blowing out the irritation he felt at such treatment. Honestly, that was why he detested doctors so much. The name caught his ear. "Who's Agent Lynley?" he asked.

"He's my liaison with Witness Protection," she said. "It's his job to make sure I'm safe, secure, and secret." The words had the slightly sarcastic air of the oft-repeated.

It didn't sound all that mundane to Octavius. "He knows where you live. And that interrupted telephone conversation is bound to arouse his suspicions."

"I know," she said, focusing on tidying up a corner of the table. "I'm trying to figure out what to do. I need my lab, but this is the first place he's going to come check on me." She scowled at Brandon. "And he's going to bring backup."

Backup did not sound good. A fleeting thought, _I could kill them all, _flitted through his mind before he squashed it. _Fool. Without your actuators, how for would you get? Without use of even two of your own limbs, how far would you get?_ He stood again and for the first time in the face of normal, pathetic law enforcement, he felt afraid. He backed up and his right leg very nearly spilled him onto the floor had he not grabbed the table. There had to be something here he could use as a weapon. Something - his gaze darted about the room.

Clair tried to consider their options. She could call Lynley back, tell him that it was just a misunderstanding, no danger, certainly no Dr. Octavius in her lab. But the chances of him not coming to check anyway were slim. They could leave, run for it, and then come back... She shook her head. This was bad. And there was no time.

He watched her think. He watched her boyfriend stare. The television droned quietly in the background and one of the cats meowed. _What was there to do? What could possibly be done in such a short amount of time? Think, Otto, think! You've easily outmaneuvered thornier situations than this. You've evaded capture, you've escaped with your skin intact and your plans in place. Do now what you did then! You are Doctor Octopus, and..._

No, I'm not.

The realization came to him slowly, easily, almost anticlimactically. Doctor Octopus was an inscrutable, untouchable being, unnatural metal tentacles capable of anything.

But there were no tentacles now. There was no power of mystery and untouchability. There was only a man with muddled thoughts and two dead limbs. As though he'd woken up from a dream of power only to remember confining reality. His gaze returned to Clair.

"Come on," she said decisively. "We can't stay here. We'll have to go somewhere else until Brandon can get rid of Lynley." She glared significantly at her boyfriend. "Which he is going to do as quickly as he can."

"What?" Brandon sputtered. "Why would I?"

"Because this is your fault! If you hadn't barged into my lab like I've told you not to do a million times, I wouldn't be in this mess!"

"_My _fault?" he shouted back. "You're the one helping the guy who sent you into hiding in the first place. Have you gone crazy, Clair?"

"The FBI sent me into hiding, not him. He gave me his word that he wouldn't hurt me, and I believed him. I still do. If that's not good enough for you, how about the fact that he can hardly stand up? He's hurt, Brandon. I'm going to help him no matter what. I'm the only one who can."

"No, you're not," he insisted. "Any neurologist could repair the damage from a stroke. That's why you never handle them in the hospital, you told me."

"Anyone could repair the superficial damage enough to let the brain heal on its own. That's not good enough." Her eyes darted unintentionally to the chemical storage freezer on the wall with the cages, the one with a print-out of a comical zombie taped to its door, and he saw it.

"You're going to use that on him?" he asked, incredulous. "But that's... You were ordered to suspend human testing after the first time, you said. I thought you got in a lot of trouble for that first report."

"It's the only thing that can repair the damage that he keeps doing to himself," she said defensively. "The human brain isn't designed-"

He cut her off, looking at her as though she were insane. "Clair, he's a criminal. And you're helping him. I know you get locked into the doctor-patient mind-set, but I can't believe you're forgetting this."

"I'm not forgetting anything," she said coldly. "Now this is important, Brandon. Stay quiet. I'm going to try and get Lynley off our case..." She picked up the phone cord and plugged it back in. The instrument rang almost immediately.

She let it ring twice before answering it, holding Brandon's gaze. "Hello?"

"Clair? Clair, what's going on? What did I hear when I called a minute ago?" She could hear traffic and a radio that hissed and squawked out occasional words. "I'm on my way over there with the police. Is Octavius there?"

"What?" she said, confusion in her voice. She wasn't a spectacular actress, but she was hopefully good enough. "What? No. Why would he be here? He doesn't even know I'm here, does he?"

"Clair, Brandon just told me to call the police, and that Doctor Octavius was there." He sounded very serious. "Is he there, and you can't talk about it? If so, say that nothing is wrong."

"It's just me and Brandon here," she said earnestly. "And some neighbor kid who brought his dog for me to look at. I think Brandon's just on edge. And drunk. I'm really sorry he sent a false alarm. You don't need to come."

"My partner and I are coming anyway," he said firmly. "I still have to talk to you about that newscast yesterday, and I'll check the situation out."

"Eh. That," she said guiltily. "They ambushed me in the hospital. There was nothing I could do. You really don't need to come for that. It won't happen again."

I'm just worrying about you," he said. "It's my job. We'll be there in about ten minutes. Just us, no police."

"Alright," she said reluctantly. They both said goodbye, and she hung up, sighing.

Still leaning against the table, Octavius searched her gaze. "What did he say?" he asked.

"He's still coming," she said crossly. "But I don't think he's bringing the police. He just wants to check on the situation."

Breathing became difficult. "And what will he find, I wonder?" He looked about the room again.

"Not you," she assured him. "We've got to get you out of here until he's gone. We've got about ten minutes." She looked out the window, down the steep slope that her house was built on. "You can hide down there," she said, pointing to the brush-filled empty lot below hers.

Hide. The very thought of hiding caused anger to flare. He did not hide from people, people hid from him! He turned from the view out the window to look back at her and it seemed, for an instant, that his old presence had returned. That still lurking within the shell of a damaged body was the creature who towered over all, impassive. Cold. Lethal. He pulled in a breath to speak. Lifted a hand.

It wasn't the hand he wanted and it barely moved at all, bringing reality crashing in and deflating that moment of presence. He glared at it, a growl rumbling quietly in this throat. Anger directed at her became anger directed at fate. At himself. How could he have been so weak as to allow this to happen to himself? He looked out the window again. He would stand and fight. He would take what was his.

He would hide. The pragmatic decision undercut the anger and pride. Survival first and hiding stood the best chance of guaranteeing survival. There was no arguing with that. He sighed, deflating. "Very well."

"We're not hiding him," protested Brandon. "Come on, Clair. Be reasonable. Turn him in. The testing will be done eventually, and you can help him then, if it's that important to you."

Octavius' gaze came to rest on Brandon and his loud, slightly panicked voice. Finally, he found something he could center his anger on. A target that slipped neatly into his sights. He picked up his walking stick and made his way slowly toward him until he stood over the other, looking down at him. He spoke slowly and deliberately to keep back the slurring that had been growing steadily worse. He kept his gaze fixed on the other's face the entire time he spoke. "Listen to me, you impudent, bleating _child_. I barely tolerate such treatment as I have so far received from Doctor Holmes. I will not. Tolerate it. From. You. Silence yourself."

Brandon balled his fists. "I'm not afraid of you. I don't know what hold you have over Clair and I don't like it. I want you out of here, and I want you locked up."

Clair grimaced. "Brandon, this isn't smart."

The stick was transferred to his right hand, which gripped it carefully. Its weight reminded him of something, vaguely. These slow, considered movements, though, were followed by the striking out of his left hand, quick as thought, to close around Brandon's throat. "You should be," he hissed into the other's face. "It is, you'll agree, the wisest choice for your continued survival."

Brandon's eyes spread wide as he worked for air. Clair leapt forward and pulled at Octavius's hand, shouting. "Let him go! Please, don't hurt him." Octavius stopped and looked down at her hand pulling at his. But his grip didn't loosen. Neither did it tighten. He looked at her hand and then at her. "Please, let go," she pleaded, frightened. Brandon struggled violently, pulling back from Octavius. With a startled gasp, he found his balance shifted to his right side, which didn't bear his weight at all, and his leg buckled, sending him toppling forward, releasing Brandon and slamming painfully onto the floor.

Brandon stumbled, then caught himself. Before Clair could stop him, he drew one foot back and kicked Octavius. He was aiming for his head, but Clair shoved him desperately and knocked his aim off, so it was Octavius' shoulder that received the blow. "No!" Clair shouted, grabbing his arm before he could do more. The entire situation was spinning out of her control.

Every moment he regretted more and more his decision to come here without his actuators. His left shoulder ached now, which interfered with the movement of his good arm. Nevertheless, he hauled himself up into a sitting position, out for blood now, his hair hanging about his face and his teeth bared. A thought occured, a memory, and he looked down at the cane.

Brandon pulled away from Clair, pushing her away, behind him. "You're pathetic," he coughed, clearing his throat. "I can't believe that Clair's been hiding from you all these years. You can't even stand up."

Clair had never noticed the silver ring around the head of Octavius' cane until he braced it with his leg against the floor, grasped the top with his good hand, and pulled, the top coming free and revealing, of all things, a sword. He stood, pushing against the wall, and raised it, still panting. "We'll see how pathetic I am..." he grated.

Clair could only stare at the weapon, which seemed so entirely out of place in this setting as to be nearly unrecognizable. Brandon reared back, his face twisting with anger and fear. "You see, Clair?" he said slowly, watching the sword tip like mongoose watches a snake. "He's got to be put away. He's not one of your cats that you can just experiment on. He's a murderer."

"Have you ever stopped to wonder why that is, you impertinent whelp?" Octavius panted.

Brandon looked up, past the sword to Octavius. "Because you're insane."

Clair hissed a breath in through her teeth. This was not going to end well.

Octavius went white, but strangely calm. The sword tip came up, inexorably pressing toward Brandon's throat. "You really are a very stupid boy," Octavius said almost contemplatively. "In the face of certain death you still stand there, undefended, and toss out insults. Still you persist in your willful ignorance. If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is willful ignorance," he finished with a growl, pushing the sword forward further.

Brandon paled as the sword tip drew blood, his hands clenching and opening at his sides, but otherwise he stood completely still until Clair pulled him back by the shoulders. He was larger than she was, they both were, but she stepped between them, pushing Brandon away. "Brandon, just shut up," she warned him, her voice shaking. "Octavius, please. He's just an idiot-"

"Do you see what I mean, Clair?" Brandon shouted. "He's a freak, a dangerous freak, and I don't want him anywhere near you."

That was the last straw. With a vicious snarl, Octavius swung, the sword drawing a gash across Brandon's shoulder and chest. His hair fell forward even further, covering part of his face as he swayed to regain his balance.

Clair screamed as Brandon fell back, clutching the wound. She was at his side instantly, lowering him to sit on the floor. But as soon as the gash proved to be shallow, despite its length, she slapped him across the face.

He looked up at her, shocked. "What the fuck?" he asked succinctly.

"I don't _belong_ to you," she hissed, offended. "It's not up to you to make any decisions about who I help. This whole thing was going just fine until you burst in!"

"Hey, he tried to kill me," protested Brandon, pointing past her at Octavius with a bloody hand.

"Only because you called him a freak!" she shouted. "Never call _anyone _that!"

"But he is one!"

"Leave off, Brandon," she said, her voice suddenly low. "He's not going to hurt me, but I'm going to hurt you if you don't shut up. You don't know anything about him."

"Oh, and you do?" he retorted. "You spent one day with him years ago and you're an expert? I've read that report, Clair. I know what that freak-"

"You don't know anything!" she shouted, furious. "Get out!" She tried to shove him bodily out the door, which was right behind him, but he resisted.

"I'm not going to leave you alone with him, Clair," he insisted stubbornly, standing up. He winced at the movement's pull on the gash, but his face was set and belligerent. "Come on, I'm going to call the police."

Leaning back against the wall, the sword still in his hand, Octavius lifted his right hand and pushed almost nerveless fingers through his hair, letting the hand drop again. He seemed to remember the word "freak" was an insult that brought out the worst in Clair. However, he noted, looking down at the blood on his sword, she wasn't alone.

It has been the first time he'd ever actually used this thing. He couldn't even remember where he'd acquired it, possibly back in the days before lucidity had taken a vacation. The days of gentility. He only vaguely remembered those days. He looked up at Clair again.

She was breathing heavily, staring up at Brandon. "If you don't get out of _my _house right now," she said darkly. "I am going to have to work very hard to keep from killing you myself."

He looked back at her. "Clair, you're not thinking straight."

"Don't tell me how I'm thinking!" she screamed back. "Stop telling me how I'm supposed to think!"

Brandon shot a glance at Octavius. "We're leaving," he said to Clair, and then he picked her up bodily, meaning to drag her out of the house. She shrieked in rage, pulled back, and punched him square in the temple, and he dropped like a stone.

Octavius watched these events, still panting, and a smile crossed his face as he let out a quiet _heh_.


	4. Realization

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 4: Realization**

By Yumegari and LRH (Beta-read by Skylanth. , Thank you, Skylanth!)

Clair extricated herself from Brandon's tangled limbs and stood up, rubbing her knuckles. She shot a dark glance at Octavius. "What are you laughing at?"

"Heh," he said, leaning against the sword and then backward to prop himself against the wall. "Well done," he panted. "You've ... changed, haven't you?" He slid down the wall to the floor, still laughing breathlessly.

She looked at him blankly, then down at Brandon. "Yeah," she said, a tiny smile finding its way out. "A little." She blinked, and laughed slightly herself. "I'm less tolerant of being picked up and taken places against my will now." She laughed harder, closing her eyes and leaning back against the door. "If I'd just done that six years ago, where would we be now?"

He laughed outright at that, albeit wheezily. "Who knows," he said, leaning his head back against the wall and chuckling stringily.

She crouched, sitting on her heels by Brandon's side, lifting his eyelids to check his pupils with a penlight from the breast pocket of her shirt. Equally reactive. "I can't believe I hit him that-" Her head went up as a car door slammed outside. "Oh no," she said softly. Footsteps sounded on the porch, and the doorbell rang.

Octavius' eyes flew open. "Is that... Agent Lynley?" he asked, struggling to rise. He patted across the floor for the other half of the cane and sheathed the sword, pushing it against the floor as he did so. He hauled himself to his feet and swayed.

"It must be," she said, pulling Brandon's limp form out of the way so she could get past the door. She surveyed the scene hastily. One wanted criminal, one unconscious boyfriend with a sword slash across his chest, and an unconcerned cat. And nowhere to hide.

He stared into space for a moment, his breathing quick and shallow. Then suddenly he lurched forward and pushed the door shut. "Follow my lead," he said to her, pushing her toward the table and into the chair. He hid the plate and drew the sword again, taking up a position behind her. A beat later, he struggled into the longcoat again, holding it with his teeth as he pushed his almost nonfunctional right arm into it and shrugging it into place.

Outside the lab, the knocking continued, joined by raised voices. "Miss Holmes? Clair? Are you in there?"

"What are you doing?" she whispered to Octavius as the voices outside escalated. After no results, the door opened with its usual squeak, and two pairs of heavy footsteps invaded the front hallway. "It shouldn't have been unlocked," Clair heard Lynley say, and the footsteps rushed to search the house. She held her breath as they approached the back hall and the lab.

"The only way to secure any leverage at all is to lead them to believe I've already firmly established myself here with you as my hostage," he hissed in her ear. "They'll have to negotiate, which will buy us time."

She nodded as the footsteps of the agents, having cleared the rest of the house already, approached the lab door carefully. The knob jiggled, and then the door burst open, revealing Agent Lynley and his partner, who Clair didn't know, with guns drawn.

"I suggest you put the weapons down, gentlemen," Octavius said, raising his voice, still speaking slowly and deliberately. "You wouldn't want all of your hard work to go to waste."

Lynley didn't lower his gun, aiming it past Clair at Octavius with an only slightly shaky hand. "Step away from her, Doctor Octopus. We've got the house surrounded; you're not going to be getting away this time."

He smiled slightly. "My, how hostage negotiations have changed," he said. "D'you see this?" he moved the sword, bringing it up near Clair's neck. "Even if you shot me from there, the reflex action would slit her throat. Has a delightfully antediluvian charm to it, wouldn't you say? Are you that willing to sacrifice what you'd worked so hard to protect?" Clair swallowed, needing no acting whatsoever to look frightened. The blade was cold against her skin.

Lynley considered this, then slowly tipped his gun up and set it down on the floor, his partner following suit. "Just put the sword down, and we'll talk. What do you want?"

"Oh, I think you know what I want," he replied, the sword not moving. "She has certain ... supplies necessary to my endeavors. She has already ... graciously complied. I should hate to think that any interference from you or your compatriots would disrupt this arrangement." his right hand made its way to her shoulder and squeezed it lightly.

Clair remained frozen, her eyes darting between the two agents as sirens, two, then more, came down the street. Lynley licked his lips nervously. "What's it going to take to get you to let her go, Ock?" he asked.

He turned his head, regarding him with his left eye. "You aren't a negotiator, are you Agent Lynley?"

"Not officially," he said guardedly. "But I can be your negotiator, if you want. Or we can get you anyone you want." He nodded to his partner, who bent down to check Brandon's pulse. "Can we take him out of here?"

Octavius nodded. "Take him out of here," he said with a measure of disgust. "As to a negotiator," here he smirked. "I have no preference, really. We've worked things out _so _amicably so far."

The sirens stopped in front of the house and more footsteps clattered in. "In here," Lynley called cautiously, not taking his eyes off Octavius. "We have a hostage situation." The partner ducked forward and grabbed Brandon, who was beginning to stir, by the shoulders, dragging him out of the room.

Two more men came clomping in, stepping over Brandon, who was still being dragged out by Lynley's partner. The nearest, a tall fellow with a sharp face, wire-rim spectacles, and thinning ginger hair, stopped before Lynley, holding up an FBI badge with one hand and sticking the other out to shake. "Brian Hanover, Negotiator," he said. "What's the situation?" He led Lynley away from the door as he spoke.

Shooting Octavius a last glance, Lynley followed Hanover back into the hall. "The man is Dr. Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus. The man down is Brandon Page, Miss Holmes' boyfriend. He lives here with her. The hostage is Clair Holmes, a.k.a. Clair Watson. She's been in Witness Protection for about six years to protect her from him. It's not the first time she's been held by him. She seems pretty frightened, but she's not hysterical or anything. Frozen. He's got a sword, of all things, and he's threatening to slit her throat. He hasn't made any demands, says she's already complied with what he wants, and he didn't give us any trouble about removing Mr. Page from the scene."

Hanover thought about this for a few beats. "What the hell is he doing all the way out here?" he mused. "He wouldn't tell you what Holmes complied to?"

Lynley shook his head. "Just said something about supplies necessary to something."

"Just how I like 'em, nice and vague," was Hanover's reply as he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He sat down at the kitchen table and hauled his bag off his shoulder, opening it and retrieving a laptop computer, which he opened and activated. Clicking through startup screens, he brought up an FBI database of sorts, accessing a section designated META.

"Metahuman database," he said. "Got files on everyone from the Hulk to Doctor Doom and back in here," he said. Flicking through the entries, he eventually stopped on a page dominated by what looked like a newspaper photograph of a rotund man with a bowl haircut and spectacles that looked as though they'd been raided out of Elton John's costume closet. The man wore tight spandex and a lab-coat and hung from two metal arms that centered at his waist, two more similar arms frozen in the act of throwing a car. "Here we go, Doctor Octopus. Crackpot scientist." He scrolled through page after page after page of entries and file photos that eventually started to chart a change in the man's look. Hanover must have taken speed-reading courses in his academy days, because his eyes flickered over the text and he muttered things about nuclear breeder reactors and superteams and a vendetta against Spider-man. A heist at an art museum was accompanied by a photo, also newsprint, of what appeared to be the same man only by virtue of omnipresent eye-wear and the metal arms. The spandex had been replaced by a massive leather longcoat, the bowl-cut by long, slicked-back locks. "Vitruvian Man," Hanover muttered. "Real nutjob 'f you ask me." More muttering about security technology and the name "Brigham Fontaine," and then he stopped on the last entry, accompanied by another photo, a badly-angled shot of the same individual, the coat now black, his expression carrying no humanity whatsoever. "Huh," Hanover said after a moment. "He's been getting more and more random with his Evil Plans, isn't he?"

Lynley looked over the man's shoulder, impressed, but not about to show it. "He doesn't have the arms with him," he pointed out, stung by the "vague" comment. "Not that I could see."

Hanover smiled humourlessly and closed the laptop. "Then I guess we're just gonna have to ask him why he left his favourite toys at home, aren't we?" He got back up and walked to the lab door. "Octavius!" he yelled. "Name's Hanover. Brian Hanover. Wanna ask you a few questions."

Octavius, still standing behind Clair with his hand on her shoulder and his sword at her neck, sighed. "Negotiators," he muttered, then raised his voice again. "Very well."

"Why'd you leave the arms at home?"

"They weren't necessary."

"Probably a real bitch to get em past airport security, huh? Dead giveaway. Why the secrecy, Octavius?"

"You tell me, Hanover. Why would I _possibly _need to hide my identity?"

"Touche," Hanover muttered. Then, "Came here in a rush, didn't you? My guess is you saw Doctor Holmes, here, in a newscast and came right away. What's the hurry, big guy?" Hanover peered into the room, taking in the sight of Clair and Octavius. His eyes narrowed imperceptibly.

"That is my concern," Octavius replied. "Doctor Holmes and I were conducting our business perfectly well before you all came along."

"What does Holmes do, anyway?" he asked of Lynley. "Isn't she some kinda brain surgeon?"

"Neurosurgeon," Lynley said, nodding and racking his memory for the details from her file. "Apparently, she's pretty good. We've had to keep her out of the news a few times before this thing with the Governor's son slipped through yesterday. Back when she was a student, she was into research, but she's practical now. One reprimand on her record for improper testing, but the details are confidential."

"The important ones always are," Hanover muttered. He looked through the door again. "You say Octavius has held her hostage before. Any details on that?"

"Yeah. He kidnapped her from the lab of her university in NY, took her somewhere, she didn't know where, and had her operate on him. She was shocky, sketchy about details, but apparently, he just let her walk out. She was bruised around the neck as if she'd been strangled, and down her back, with a lot of odd little punctures, but no real injuries. The city paid for some therapy and she went back to a normal life, but then someone called in a tip that Octavius was threatening her, and we stuck her in the Program."

Hanover leaned against the wall and looked at Lynley. "Octavius is a nuclear physicist. Or, at least, he was. His interests are all over the map. But I've never seen anything about his taking an interest in brain surgery... unless..." He looked through the lab door again, squinting. He watched as Octavius conferred almost inaudibly with Holmes. The sword remained steady, however...

"He use his right hand at all, since you came in here?" he asked, turning to look at Lynley again.

Lynley rolled his eyes upwards, thinking. "No," he said at last. "Except to hold her shoulder. Why?"

Hanover simply nodded as though that confirmed a suspicion. He looked back though the lab door. "Octavius! It's Hanover again."

Feeling himself start to wilt, Octavius took a deep breath and straightened his spine. "Yes?"

"Kinda noticed you don't look so good, there, pal. Little trouble with that arm? Whole right side, maybe? What do you really need Doctor Holmes for?"

"I already told you, that's none of your concern!" Octavius snapped.

A clock chimed. An hour had already passed. He squeezed Clair's shoulder again, and she noticed his grip had weakened further. She twisted, careful of the blade, and looked up at him, trying to ask silently how he was doing. She knew, once the t-PA treatment was started, it had to be finished on schedule. Almost as though reading the silent question in her eyes, he shook his head, then looked at the syringes and vials she'd left at the other end of the table. The sword moved away from her neck but was still held nearby. Clair stood slowly and crossed to the other end of the table, getting the needle and a new vial. She was careful to keep her movements as controlled as possible as she drew the correct dose, checked the syringe for air and came back stiffly to his side.

"What are you doing, Doctor Holmes?" Hanover's voice rang through the otherwise quiet room.

"Don't answer," Octavius muttered, gesturing that she help him with the longcoat sleeve.

"It's important that I know the situation, Doctor Holmes," Hanover persisted. "I'm sure you understand that."

Remembering the fear she had felt on their first encounter and using that to shrink her voice, she spoke while rolling up the sleeve far enough to reach the vein. "It's a tissue plasminogen activator," she said, making the injection smoothly before pulling away. "It degrades atrophied hemoglobin."

"Y'don't say," Hanover said drily. "Mind repeating that in English for us, Doctor? What's it do?" When Octavius shook his head, Hanover returned his attention to him. "Something you don't want us to know, Octavius?"

"Many things, Mister Hanover," came the lofty reply.

"Yeah, I thought so. What leverage you got over Holmes, Octavius? Gotta be more than that antique you're waving around. Got her family tied up in some cellar somewhere? Got some piece of gonzo science ready to explode at the press of a button? Implant something in her boyfriend? I know how your type works, Octavius. Never do anything half-assed."

Octavius' grip tightened on the sword and he hissed in anger.

"Temper, there, Doc," Hanover said breezily. "Just answer me one question. What do you plan on doing with Holmes once this thing's done?"

Octavius visibly calmed himself, leading Clair to the table with his nerveless right hand. She sat and he resumed his position behind her, sword under her chin. "Now that all depends on whether you or your men do anything rash, now, doesn't it, Mister Hanover?"

"Let's say we don't."

"Then it'd be a miracle," Octavius muttered. Then, "I will release her. Like I did last time."

"What happened last time?"

"That is also none of your concern, Hanover!" Octavius growled. "I tire of your incessant questioning! I tire of your voice! Leave us!"

"Now you know I can't do that-"

"LEAVE US!" Octavius howled, the sword digging against the skin of Clair's neck. "LEAVE US OR SO HELP ME SHE _WILL _DIE!"

Hanover looked about to say something, but withdrew and closed the door. As soon as it closed, Octavius dropped the sword and leaned against the table, panting, sweat beading on his brow. Clair turned around, rubbing her neck. "Careful," she said quietly, hardly voicing the words. "Is it getting worse?"

"It's the same as before," he panted, leaning heavily against the table. "Pounding headache. Can't tolerate sounds... light... blinding..." He shuddered violently and his left hand started to twitch. "Can't think... same as before..."

"I can give you a painkiller," she offered. "It'll steady you, but you'll feel a little muzzy. A little more muzzy," she corrected. "You have to keep this up or they take you away. I'll help all I can, but this is mostly up to you."

He shook his head, hair swinging. "Can't afford to ... lose ... lucidity..." He swayed, then sank to the floor, left arm shaking as it struggled to hold him up. "Need ... a moment... calm myself..." His breathing was as laboured as ever and he knelt there, breathing loudly, struggling to calm himself.

There was a quiet _brrrt _and Frank appeared, making his slow three-legged way toward Octavius to rub against the other's leg. Octavius looked down at him, chest still heaving. He gazed at the cat for several moments. Clair crouched next to him, and checked his pulse. It was slowing, which meant that his blood pressure was probably dropping. She looked up, thinking. "I could add a stimulant. It's not the best idea, but it would keep you alert."

There was a pause, and Octavius nodded, his breathing still laboured. The cat climbed onto his leg and draped over him, paws kneading at the fabric of his trousers.

She got up and opened the chemical storage cooler, searching through the vials, discarding one after another until she came up with two. "Clear off, Frank," she muttered, pushing the cat away once she was back at his side. "Okay, this is propoxyphene napsylate, a pain killer, and the stimulant is boraphine. It's going to speed up your heart rate and raise your blood pressure, but you'll feel stronger."

He nodded again, pushing the sleeve up a little further. "How much longer do we need to continue this treatment?" he wheezed

"Four more hours," she said, injecting first the painkiller, then the other into the vein. "You should feel this right away." She pushed the cat away when he tried to climb back onto Octavius' legs. "I hope it helps."

Octavius sat back, rubbing his arm. "Hnnn..." he said, looking away. Truth be told, he was feeling some kind of effect. The painkiller was fuzzing his consciousness, making him sleepy. His hand twitched. His spine floated, there was no other way to describe it. His eyes fluttered and he sighed, leaning back until he felt his back press against the couch, and counted his breaths. This was not going to be pleasant, and the last thing he needed was to be woken up from a sleep state by a suddenly spiking heart rate. He waited, fighting to keep his eyes open.

She peered out the window, through the mostly-shut curtains. "They've surrounded the house now. How are we going to hold them off long enough?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "I don't know everything, it just seems that way..."

She looked back at him. "Come on. We'll think of something. Are you feeling the stimulant yet?"

He sucked in a breath and let it out in a gusty sigh, pushing himself forward and reaching for the table. Bracing on that, he hauled himself upright again. "Hnnn..." He looked at the window as well. "Blast. How to get rid of them..." He squinted at the window, thinking.

"Tell them to leave," she said, thinking as well. "You have a hostage, they have to listen to you, don't they?"

Octavius shook his head. "Heh. It's not that simple. They have a job to do, after all, and that job is rescuing you from my clutches. They've a ingrained tendency toward persistence that borders on the suicidal."

"How long until they come back in, do you think?" she asked. She could hear the police moving around outside the lab, and kept her voice down.

Octavius growled in his throat and looked up at the door. "They're too close. Too many of them." He seemed to think on this, his breathing growing faster again.

"Stay calm," she said placatingly, twitching the curtain the rest of the way shut. "We'll get out of this."

"Do _not_ tell me to 'stay calm!'" he spat suddenly. "You have nothing at stake in this! HANOVER!" he suddenly roared, bending and retrieving the sword. "I wish to speak with you!" The sword poked lightly against Clair's collarbone and he struggled to get his other arm around her chest from behind. "I know you're listening!"

Clair took a deep breath, suddenly nervous. Abrupt mood changes were rarely a good sign, and even though she wasn't afraid of Octavius, she remained well aware that he was a dangerous man.

The door opened. "I'm here," Hanover's voice said as he stood in the gathering shadows. "What do you need?"

"I _need_ you and your men to leave this house!" Octavius spat.

"That's out of the question, Octavius, you know that."

"Gather around its perimeter if you must, you vultures, but LEAVE this HOUSE!"

"How many hostage situations have you participated in over all these years, Octavius? Most people can't count that high, I'm sure. It's not like you to go forgetting the rules of engagement, here," Hanover said calmly, with the air of a preternaturally patient teacher. "The hostage-taker makes his demands, sure, otherwise it wouldn't be a hostage situation, would it? But you know there are limits to what you can demand in regard to our tactics. The stage is set, Octavius, and it's pretty small. If we leave the house, there's no telling what you would do."

"If you do _not_ leave this place, there is no telling what I would do! If I am forced to ask again, Doctor Holmes here will start losing body parts, and I'm certain none of you want that!" The intensity in his voice grew to a fever pitch and she could feel him shaking. "I will start with her ears. After that, perhaps her toes. I wouldn't want to rob her of her fingers so _quickly!_" His grip on her tightened a fraction.

Hanover appeared to think on this. "Do you have a phone in here, Doctor Holmes?" he asked. She nodded carefully, not sure what the situation was at the moment. Octavius didn't seem entirely in control at the moment.

"Give me the phone number, Doctor Holmes," Hanover said placatingly. "We'll retreat to the perimeter and continue negotiations. Will that suffice?" His gaze moved back to Octavius.

"_Yesss..._" Octavius hissed, fury still evident in his voice.

"It's five five five, five six eight seven," she stuttered.

Hanover nodded. "We'll withdraw, then, Octavius. And in ten minutes, I will call Doctor Holmes' phone. Do I have your word that she will answer?"

"Yes," Octavius hissed again. "Now leave."

Hanover quietly shut the door. Octavius wilted, dropping the sword on the table and releasing Clair. He found the chair and dropped heavily onto it, rubbing his forehead.

"You were scaring me," she said. She flexed her hands, which felt preternaturally cold. "But at least they're convinced."

He took a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh. A beat passed. He looked up, watching her twitch her fingers. A strange feeling spread through his chest like someone had just burst a bag of warm jelly. Another sigh and he shook his head, reaching out to wrap very warm fingers around Clair's. "Can't afford to have chilled fingers," he muttered.

"You're always warm," she observed. "At least we know your circulation hasn't been impaired."

"Hnn," he said, reaching out to pick up her other hand, pressing them together between his. He looked down at them, possibly noticing how small hers were compared to his.

She noted that as well. His hands enveloped hers completely. She had always noticed hands. Maybe it was a side effect of being a surgeon, relying so much on the skill of her fingers, but she regarded hands as important. His were not unattractive; well-formed and strong, with long fingers.

Hers _were_ cold. And trembling ever so slightly under his palms. He waited for them to warm up, and noticed how near they were. Strange. He never let people near him, and yet she always seemed to be somewhere within his personal space. It didn't anger him as much as it would have normally. His gaze traveled to her face and he watched her, realizing that her hair was shorter than it was the last time he'd gotten this close of a look at her, six years ago.

She ducked her head, escaping his gaze to hide the blush that was threatening. "You have nice hands," she blurted out before she could stop herself, and she cursed herself silently as seven times an idiot.

An amused snort escaped him. "It's not exactly what I usually expect to hear from hostages, even willing ones."

"We don't exactly have a typical hostage to bad-guy relationship," she pointed out, smiling.

"True, that." There was a pause as his gaze moved to the window, then the door, then the television, then back to her. "I feel strangely compelled to ask what you've been doing these six years." He hadn't yet let go of her hands, even though they were warming by now.

"Not much of anything, really," she answered. "Once I graduated, the FBI moved me out here and placed me at HarborView, and I've been there ever since. I like it here, but it's not half as exciting as New York."

"Why did they move you then? It seems to me that if they really thought I was a threat, they would have moved you straight away." he looked at her sidelong with his left eye. "Or have you been going around getting yourself kidnapped by other 'evil geniuses?' Should I hunt down the Lizard when I get home, perhaps? Or the Vulture?"The barest hint of a smile crept across his features at that, turning up one side of his mouth.

"No, nothing like that," she laughed. "They weren't going to move me at all, until someone phoned in an anonymous tip that you'd made some threats." She looked at him quizzically. "You didn't, did you?"

He shook his head. "No," he said, looking a little puzzled. "Who would falsify something like that?"

"If the Program ever found out, they never told me," she shrugged. "I didn't even find out about the tip until I came home from the lab one day and found all my stuff being carted out of my apartment. I've had a lot of time to think about it, though. Whoever did it effectively got me out of the neuroregenesis field. I can't do any heavy research at all now."

"Neuroregenesis," Octavius thought about this for a moment. "Biotechnology." His fingers tightened as he momentarily forgot he had Clair's hands in his. "_Osborn,_" he grated. "I wouldn't put it past him to try to eliminate any competition he didn't figure could be bought."

"Osborn, as in Oscorp Osborn?" Clair asked, wiggling her fingers in his grip. "Why would he be interested in any of this?"

He loosened his grip. "Oscorp is a biotechnology firm. And Norman Osborn does not like advances that aren't made under his eye. It's a wonder he didn't try to buy your discovery."

"He couldn't have if he wanted to," Clair pointed out. "As soon as they found out that I'd done 'unsanctioned human testing,' my research was officially confiscated and the results locked, while a government team took the whole concept back to square one to try and get the same results."

He growled softly at that. "There's nothing quite like the government at forcibly reinventing the wheel, is there?" His eyes lit on Frank, who sat licking his leg obliviously. "And yet you continued research on your own anyway..."

"Obviously." She smiled down at Frank. "They couldn't confiscate what I knew about it. And the research was more important than letting them make it complicated." She looked over her shoulder at a stack of battered notebooks, all dog-eared and labeled with that same smiling zombie. "I'm going to be in trouble again when this is all over, if the police take too close a look at what you're here for."

"It looks as though I was wrong," he said, gazing at the stack of notebooks. "You didn't let them stand in the way of doing what you're meant to do. A drive I'm quite familiar with."

"I know," she said. "If we let bureaucracy stand in our way, science would stagnate under the sheer weight of tests to test tests." She rolled her eyes. "It is ridiculous, how far they're willing to go to prove that something doesn't work, while it's working right in front of their eyes."

"Which is why you simply go ahead and demonstrate that it works anyway," he said, releasing her hands and pushing himself to his feet. Leaning against the table, he made his way to where the notebooks sat stacked in a pile and flipped open the top one, looking down at it.

"If I did that publically," she pointed out. "I would go to jail, and I can't do my research from there." She looked at the number on the spine of the notebook that he had opened. "That's my notes from Frank's recovery. He went through a behavioral pattern very similar to yours, actually." She looked away. "On a smaller scale."

"There's always the life of a renegade," he murmured, looking back at her. "But strangely I don't think I'd want to see you do that." That one-sided smile again. "You might put me out of business."

"Oh yes, I can see that," she smirked, crossing her arms and leaning on the table. "The renegade neurosurgeon. Watch out kids, she'll steal your brain and make it dream in a jar." She laughed warmly. "I just can't picture it."

He chuckled at that. "Oh, that's only because you've set your sights too low. Why make brains dream in jars when you can tailor that neural serum of yours to have any effect on the nervous system you wanted. It could open the door to all kinds of things. Biochemical mind control... A thriving drug market... Then the next thing I know you'll be parading about in something skintight and scrambling Spider-man's brain from the inside out. Something I wouldn't mind seeing," though whether it was her in a skintight outfit or Spider-man dead wasn't clear.

"Don't give me any ideas," she chuckled. "It's only too possible, with this stuff. I'm working on a delivery system that would eliminate the whole hole-in-head thing. A carrier virus that would deliver the serum to the soma without letting it reach the myelin sheath." She pulled out the third notebook down in the stack. "See, it's only theoretical right now, though I was about to start tests, but with this, a simple injection would deliver the serum." She flipped through the pages of diagrams and rambling notes, her eyes bright with passion for the subject.

He watched her, unable to take his gaze from the sight of her eyes or her slightly flushed face. Even when she stopped on the page in question and pointed out the schematics and the descriptions, he still watched her.

"See, it's..." She looked up from the page to find him watching her intently. The blush returned in earnest, making her feel about twelve years old and lighting her ears figuratively on fire. "It's... uh..." She trailed off, watching him watch her.

He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the notes, but shuffled closer to peer at them. Almost unconsciously, he placed his hand on her shoulder to steady himself. He leaned forward, his hair brushing her cheek.

Acutely aware of his proximity, she struggled to bring her thoughts back together. "It's, um, if I could get the funding for a better lab, I would test this. Use a relatively inert virus, because you don't want it spreading." She could feel the heat from him, and almost leaned back into it. "Something that would die off after a while."

"The equipment you need could probably be easily procured, though I doubt you'd want to go through the channels necessary to get them," he said softly, still looking down at the notes. "And I'm not sure if I'd want you to, either..."

She couldn't think. Something was wrong in her own head, she couldn't keep a train of thought, and her heart was taking on a rhythm all its own. "Why not?" she asked softly.

"It's a dangerous, deadly life and once you set your foot on that path, you can never leave it. If you did... I would feel strangely compelled to protect you," he breathed.

She twisted to look at him, searching his face for . . . something. "Then you'd know what it feels like."

"What what feels like?" came the answer, barely audible. If at all possible, he seemed to draw even closer.

"To want to protect someone who's part of your life through the oddest series of chances and events, and to suddenly care..." She broke off, then continued resolutely, her voice a mere whisper. "And to care suddenly about someone so much that their life, their, continued health becomes the most important thing in the world."

His hand came up, almost of its own volition, to slip a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers intensely hot as they brushed her ear. "I suppose I do, at that."

She reached up and caught his hand. "When this is over," she said, studying it, then looking back up into his eyes. "Take me with you."

He blinked. "Take... take you with me?" he asked, the question _Why_? clear in his tone.

"This isn't my life," she said, looking around them. "I left my life behind in New York six years ago. Ever since, it's been like living outside myself, reading a book about my life that someone _else _is writing. Only here, in my lab, do I ever get to feel alive. And now they'll take all of this away from me again. And you..." She lost the string of words. "I'd worry about you," she finished lamely.

"You would worry about me?" he echoed, the smallest hint of a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "There's more, isn't there?"

Clair nodded. "And I'd miss you. I know it sounds trite and cliched, but there it is. I feel more, _more _when you're around. Like I'm using my whole brain, like the volume's turned up and everything is sharper..." She laughed. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"No... no, you're making sense," he said, his gaze caught on something far off, his tone that of one who'd just come to a realization. His fingers curled around hers. "You're making ... perfect sense." He looked back down at her, into her grey eyes.

Her breath caught as she looked back into his eyes, and she tipped her face up to his, smiling slightly. "So you do understand," she whispered.

He dropped his head a fraction further, looking at her through lidded eyes that she could see, now, at this small, close distance, through the sunglasses. "Yes... I think I do," he murmured. "I think I understand." They were so very close now, it was almost as though his gaze could read her thoughts.

As if it were inevitable, she rose on her toes, closed that tiny distance and brushed her lips against his, then pulled back, startled by her own temerity.

A beat passed. Breathless silence in which he grew perfectly motionless. In an instant, his hand, which had been grasping her fingers, slipped into her hair and he leaned forward, pressing his lips, hot and insistent, to hers. His right hand grasped her shoulder, fingers curling lightly around it but just as hot as the other hand, intense heat soaking through the fabric of her shirt.

She melted against him, deepening the kiss silently, one hand sliding behind his neck, the other fisting itself in the collar of his coat. It was like kissing the sun, all heat and power and electricity.

He growled softly in his throat, a sound almost like that of a huge, purring jungle cat, both arms around her, now, pulling her against him, and he leaned forward even further, lips capturing hers, possessive, tingling with intensity and heat. His eyes had slipped shut and his breathing had grown deep and heavy, his racing heart thundering in his chest. The kiss lengthened, an exquisite eternity-

The phone rang.


	5. Desperation

Unreasonable Addiction

Chapter 5: Trust

By Yumegari and LRH

The phone rang.

Clair's eyes opened and she jerked, startled that there was still a world apart from the two of them. The phone rang again while she stood there, still wrapped in his arms, her lips barely an inch from his. "I should get that," she murmured, trying to remember how to breathe normally.

His eyes tracked to where the phone lay on the table, ringing insistently. "Yes, I think you should," he replied, releasing her. He leaned against the table, still breathing hard.

Clair stepped away from him reluctantly and picked up the phone, answering it. "Hello," she said, still trying to get her voice under control.

"Doctor Holmes," Hanover said, sitting on the hood of the squad car in her driveway and watching the house. "Is everything all right?" He glanced about at the SWAT team members who crouched in the bushes and waited. Behind him, Lynley perused the file on Doctor Octopus.

"I'm still okay," she said shakily, combing her hair back. She didn't let the small foolish smile on her face into her voice.

"You sound a little shaken, Doctor."

"I'm fine," she repeated.

"We'll take your word for it, Doctor." He looked back, as though reminding himself of something. "You'll be happy to know that Mister Page has been taken to the hospital and that his wounds don't appear to be serious."

She had forgotten all about Brandon. "I'm glad to hear it," she said carefully. "Did he wake up?"

"Why, yes, he did, Doctor Holmes. The sword wound is self-explanatory. However, I'm intrigued as to the cause of his head wound. To hear Mister Page tell it, you struck him."

Clair froze. "What?" she asked, trying to sound confused. "Me? Why would I hit him? He's my boyfriend." She almost stumbled over the word. "He was trying to protect me."

"Not to hear Mister Page tell of it, Doctor. He said, and I quote, 'she's with him, now, that freak, she clocked me when I tried to get her out of the room.'"

She shot an alarmed glance at Octavius, hoping he could hear Hanover's half of the conversation. "I don't know what he's talking about. I didn't hit Brandon. Why would I? He was trying to save me."

"You tell me, Doctor Holmes," Hanover replied. Octavius, for his part, still stood in the same place, but appeared to be listening intently.

Clair began to shake. The whole plan was dissolving. She kept her voice as steady as it had been. "Brandon was hit pretty hard, Mr. Hanover. He must be confused. Delirium is a common enough reaction to a concussion."

"You're the brain surgeon, Doctor Holmes, not me," Hanover replied, sounding less than thoroughly convinced. There was a pause. "Put him on the phone, would you?"

Her face pale and set, she handed the phone to Octavius, then wrapped her arms around herself. "He's suspicious," she mouthed to him.

He nodded, then put the phone to his ear. "Yes?"

"Feeling a little saner, now, are we, Octavius?" Hanover's voice asked.

Octavius scowled. "I was until you asked that."

"Fair enough. How long you planning on keeping this up, Octavius? How long're you and Doctor Holmes gonna play this little game?"

"I assure you, Mister Hanover, this is no game," Octavius growled.

"How long?"

"As long as it takes," Octavius snapped. A beat. "At least three more hours."

"What do you need her for, Octavius? I'm gonna keep asking until I get an answer I like."

"Be prepared to ask it for the rest of your life, then," came the cold reply. Octavius glared into the distance. "You won't know."

"You know, most people demand money or safe transport or someone's head on a platter or-" a beat "-in your case, Spider-man's identity. But then again, you've never been conventional in your methods, have you, Octavius?"

"Your flattery is wasted, Hanover."

"You got Holmes' family?"

"No."

"You need her for some kinda treatment, don't you?"

"Very good, Mister Hanover, it only took you this long to figure it out."

"I usually deal with more conventional hostage cases. You know, ten million in unmarked bills and a chopper to Bermuda kinda thing."

"Then this must be an educational experience for you."

"Yeah, real lesson and a half. You got another shot coming up in about thirty-six minutes, am I right?"

The sound of teeth grinding could be heard as Octavius scowled. "Yes."

"I think I"m gonna call back then. And every hour until this is done."

"Do whatever you think you have to, Hanover, it won't get you Doctor Holmes any quicker."

"We'll see," was Hanover's cryptic reply before he hung up.

Octavius tossed the phone back onto the table with a sound of disgust. "Impertinent yapping dog," he growled.

Clair chewed nervously at her lip. "He knows. Or he suspects, anyway, that this is a sham."

Octavius sighed leaning against the table. "It was a poorly conceived one. Not my best work, I'll admit."

"We've got to convince him," she said desperately. "We still have hours to wait, and if they doubt, they'll come in and take you away."

Slowly, he brought his weak hand up to rub the bridge of his nose while he leaned heavily on the other hand. "What do you suggest?" he said irritably. "I'm out of ideas."

She paced abruptly, three paces, turn, three back in the narrow space between the table and the couch. "He doesn't believe us, because he thinks I'm on your side, which would mean that I'm in no real danger, because you won't hurt an ally. And if I'm your ally, then you don't have a hostage, and they can attack with impunity." She stopped, stared at the sword on the table. "We have to prove I'm not your ally."

He found the chair again and sat on it. "There's only one way to prove that you and I are not allies. Would you be willing to follow such a course of action?"

"Yes," she said resolutely. It really needed no consideration. Not at this stage.

He looked to the side again, a sure sign he was thinking. "Hnnn..." His eyes tracked back to her before his head moved, looking at her again. "Your choice," he said simply.

"How steady are your hands now?" she asked, fingering her ear.

He looked down at his left hand. "Steady enough," he said.

Surreality again. She felt detached. "Take the outside edge of my ear. It'll bleed a lot, scare the hell out of them, but I don't need it. I have a local somewhere around here, I won't even feel it."

There was a pause. Octavius nodded. "We'll wait until after he calls again. I'm certain, with that insolent tongue of his, he'll do something to anger me." He looked at the phone on the table, then back at her.

She pressed her hands flat to the table to keep them from shaking, and took a deep breath. Looking sideways at him, she smiled in a manner she hoped was reassuring, then she went and dug through the shelves for a local anaesthetic. Finding one, she set it on the table next to his t-PA and the box of syringes, compulsively straightening the small collection into a neat line.

He watched her as she did this, and it suddenly struck him how small she was. A tiny bird of a woman. Fragile. The sudden notion that he would need to protect her from everything hit him, but he pushed it aside. _Nonsense. I don't protect people. Besides, she can take care of herself_. Yet the idea persisted. His eyes never left her as these thoughts coursed through his mind.

She sat down in her chair and pulled her knees up to her chest, staring into space. Seemingly of its own volition, her gaze kept coming back to the bright sword on the table, but she wasn't seeing it. "Do you miss the actuators?" she asked suddenly, looking at the gleaming micro-surgery arms.

"Miss them?" he echoed. There was a pause and his voice grew quiet. "I suppose I do. I don't miss _them_, per se, but I miss _having _them. Using them. They'd become necessary for so many things." He looked away, seemingly unwilling to say any more, but what could be gathered from his tone was a vulnerability that he was not comfortable with.

"After the first time, it took two days for me to get used to not having them again." She closed her eyes. "I'd reach out for something, and realize that the reason my arm didn't move was because I'd reached with one of them, and they simply weren't there. They're addictive, aren't they?"

"That's one way of putting it," he replied. He leaned back in the chair, his right arm draped over his lap, and regarded her.

She opened her eyes, poked the vials into a straighter line and rubbed her ear again. She wasn't scared; this would be no worse than some of the more extreme piercings she had seen. And she trusted the man who would be holding the blade...

She looked over at Otto, meeting his eyes. Yes, she trusted him.

He continued to watch her, still and silent, yet radiating an unidentifiable energy. There was no turning back, now. Not with that kiss. No escape. No second thoughts.

She watched him, and then uncurled from her chair and went to him, sitting on the arm of his chair and leaning back against his shoulder, wanting the contact.

He curled his arm around her, the right one still draped in his lap, and slipped his fingers into her hair, toying with it as he stared ahead in thought. It was strange that his touch could be so light, and so tingling with energy at the same time. He turned his head to look at her and she could see his eyes, black and unreadable. She turned towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tucking her head into the angle of his neck. It felt right; she fit there. She held that for a moment, and then she brought her head up and kissed him on the corner of the mouth.

That one-sided smile flickered across his lips and he turned his head, tilting it back until his lips met hers, a little less insistent this time, but still just as hot, just as possessive. His arm curled tighter around her and his other hand made it to her hip where it rested, warming the skin under her clothing. She smiled against his lips and covered his hand with her own, reveling in the heat. She was always cold, but he was generating enough warmth for them both.

She felt tiny in his arms. Almost as though she would break. But it didn't matter. None of that did, not after what she'd started. He pulled her against him, deepening their kiss, his fingers curling in the fabric of her shirt between her shoulder blades. A part of his mind wondered if she knew what she was getting into. Another part didn't care if she did or not. And a third part suddenly unwound itself - released its tension and left him almost euphoric. Almost as though this was something he needed.

She opened her mouth to his, making a small noise of contentment deep in her throat, and then she ran a line of tiny kisses down his jaw, down his neck to the collar of his coat before arching up and laying a kiss on his temple, right where she'd injected the ZJ years ago. Her fingers combed his hair back from his face as her lips rejoined his, and she slitted her eyes open like a cat's to watch him.

He'd sighed as her lips traveled down his neck, his head tilting back, his hand making its way to her hair, fingers curling in it. His breathing grew slow and heavy again and his eyes slipped shut, a sound like a growling purr escaping him as her fingers combed through his hair. His pulse pounded in his fingers as he drew them along her neck and forward to her collarbone, a hot, pulsing pressure against the hollow of her throat before his hand slipped down over her chest and stomach and curled round her waist, pulling her close against him, his other hand very slowly making its way up her side. She took a deep, shuddering breath and twitched sideways. "Ticklish," she mumbled against his mouth, smiling. Her fingers withdrew from his hair and slid down the lines of his face and neck, memorizing them.

"I'll have to remember that," he murmured into her lips, one half of an evil smile flashing, for just a second. His head fell back, his neck sleek and soft under her fingers, and his left hand slid back up her chest, over her shirt, to slip around the back of her neck and into her hair again, his right hand staying against her side, in the slight curve of her waist.

Her hands were on the buttons of his coat when the clock chimed. She dropped her head against his chest for a moment before pulling reluctantly away and sitting back up on the arm of the chair. "It's that time again," she said wearily, reaching across and retrieving the vials and two syringes.

He sighed a gusty sigh in an effort to calm his breathing, his head still dropped back against the back of the chair. "Hnnnnnnnnnhhhhh," he said, a frustrated sound. His eyes flicked to the phone and he rolled his head in its direction, glaring at it as though telling it to just get it done and over with.

She drew both his dose of the t-PA and a very small dose of the local for her. Too much could numb her face, which would give the ploy away. She mumbled something extremely uncomplimentary about Hanover and his skills of observation.

That caused Octavius to snicker, though his eyes didn't move from the phone as she pushed up the sleeve and injected the next dose, using the smaller vein that ran parallet to the one she had been using. The feeling hadn't returned to his arm at all, otherwise it probably would have ached from all the injection points, which had started to bruise slightly. After rolling his sleeve back down, she handed him the other syringe. "Help me? It's harder to do it myself," she explained, sitting on the arm of the chair again, her back to him. She pulled her hair out of the way and folded her ear forward. "Anywhere in the upper lobe," she said. "Put it just under the skin, press the plunger smoothly, and pull it out."

There was a pause and his right hand crept up until it rested on her head, fingers in her hair, holding it back somewhat when they curled slowly. He took the syringe in his left hand, then cautiously poked the needle against the skin of the ear's curve at an angle, nudging it in with a slight push. The plunger was depressed and the needle pulled out, then he handed it forward to her, his other hand slipping from her head to drop into his lap again.

"Thank you." She rubbed the injection site, tracing the shape of her ear, then picked up both needles and threw them into the red sharps container. When the phone rang, she slipped her hand into his right, squeezing it slightly.

He picked it up and pressed the button. "Yes, now what?"

"And hello to you, too, Sunshine," Hanover's voice replied. "Is Doctor Holmes still there?"

"Yes," Octavius replied.

"You two having fun?" Was Hanover's next question.

It wasn't much acting at all as Octavius got angry. "Are you as dense as you appear, Hanover?" he demanded. "I assure you that Doctor Holmes is far from safe here and becomes less so the more you irritate me!"

"And what do you stand to gain from that, Octavius?"

He growled into the phone. His eyes flicked up to her and he mouthed, "Scream," as his hand gripped hers. "If a demonstration of my intent is what you wish, then that is what you will receive!"

She shrieked in mock terror, her eyes dancing. Despite what was about to happen, she felt giddy. Perhaps it was the pain-killer.

"Octavius, don't be hasty!" Hanover shouted.

"It's far too late for that, Hanover!" He barked into the phone, "You will see what your foolishness gains you!" With that, he hung up the phone and stood, pushing her toward the door, picking up his sword. "Front door," he said, his right hand gripping her shoulder.

She opened the lab door and led him down the hall, noting in passing the mess that the police had left of her house. She opened the front door, blinking in the headlights that were aimed at the porch. The sun had gone down at some point in the past hour, and the air outside was cold. Otto's hand was a comforting warmth on her shoulder.

Hanover, who was still sitting on the hood of the squad car, scrambled from his perch, but didn't approach. He held his gun up, though. "Don't do it, Octavius," he warned. "The place is surrounded."

Octavius' sword came up against the side of her head. "My demands have changed, Hanover!" he shouted. "Remove those men from the premises!"

"You know I can't do that, Octavius!" Hanover shouted back, squinting, trying to draw a bead on the other. Holmes was so small that she made a very bad shield.

"This is your last chance! SEND THEM AWAY!" His left hand trembled visibly.

"Rethink your terms! These men aren't moving! Rules of engagement, Octavius, you're slipping!"

"FOOL! Do you think I demand these things lightly! This show of force gains you nothing!"

"It gains me the ability to storm the place if she dies, Octavius!"

"You leave me no choice, you yammering idiot!" Octavius growled. "I promised you that if your men did not leave, she would start losing parts! I always keep my word, Hanover! THAT should be in your file as well!" With that, the sword, which had been trembling against the side of her head, flicked and, with a small spurt of blood, sliced off almost the entire outer portion of her ear.

The local hadn't worked as well as she would have hoped, and there was no acting in her scream of pain. She clasped one hand to the side of her head, blood running through her fingers as she swayed, falling against Otto as she lost her balance.

At the same time, Hanover cursed and fired, the bullet exploding part of the door frame. Octavius pulled her backward to shut the door as Hanover fired again. Octavius jerked violently, slamming the door shut before slumping to the floor against it, his breathing loud.

Clair rolled up onto her hands and knees, gasping and holding her ear. When she could control herself, she looked up at Otto. "Are you alright?" she asked worriedly. Where had the second shot gone?

He lay slumped against the door frame, chest heaving, right hand weakly clutching his left shoulder. His head had fallen forward, and his hair hung over his face, obscuring it from view. His left hand twitched spasmodically.

"Ah no," she breathed, ignoring the blood dripping down her neck. She scrambled to his side, pushing his hand away to examine the wound. There wasn't much she could see as the longcoat covered most of the wound, but her probing fingers found an entry wound in the meat of his shoulder, just under where the collar bone met the shoulder joint. There was no exit wound. Blood made her fingers slick as she pushed at the folds of the flap that covered the shoulder of his longcoat. His breathing was fast and hard, and he seemed only semiconscious.

Desperation gave her strength as she pulled the longcoat off his shoulder and tore away the shirt beneath to find the bullet wound. "Stay with me," she told him. "Come on, stay with me."

He shuddered and his breathing grew louder, heavy gasps. His feet scraped against the floor until his left found purchase, pushing him against the door. He appeared to try to haul himself upright, as he curled inward and pushed more of his back against the door. His eyelids fluttered behind the sunglasses that had slipped down his nose, and his teeth clenched. She stood up, supporting as much of his weight as she could. "Come on," she repeated, a mantra to keep them both moving. "Come on, back to the lab. Come on." She had first aid materials there, and drugs to ward off shock. She hadn't dealt with a gunshot wound since her internship in the ER. It didn't matter, she could do this. She had to.

He staggered against her, losing the shades entirely in the process, and they made their weaving course back to the lab, his breathing growing louder and more laboured by the second, his right arm, which was draped over her, twitching weakly and his left hanging nervelessly. He nearly fell against the lab doorway, leaning against it nevertheless and taking a moment to gather his strength before his legs buckled. He hauled himself from the doorway and continued into the lab, but slumped to the floor once inside, eyes screwed shut, breath coming in heaving gasps.

"Come ON," she growled, pulling him towards the couch. Her grip was slippery with both their blood. He moaned loudly and rolled, attempting to get his feet under himself again, succeeding somewhat and staggering to the couch before he dropped onto it, choking with pain, his face slick with sweat.

She pushed him until he was lying on his back, propped up slightly against an arm so the wound was higher than his heart. Easing his left arm out of the coat and torn shirt, she pressed the heel of her hand down hard on the hole, trying to stop the bleeding. "Please don't die please don't die please don't die," she muttered while she reached with her free hand for the vial of local left over from her ear.

He spluttered and choked something that sounded like "Been through worse," a delirious half-grin on his face as he twitched violently, his eyes still screwed shut. His right hand flapped weakly until it found her arm.

She drew the local, a lot more than she'd used on herself, and injected it into the muscle of his shoulder. "Worse?" she asked distractedly, still applying pressure.

"Hnngh... egh..." he gagged. "Arms... pulled out... more... painful than this... not quite ... as ... messy..." His twitching features slackened somewhat and his mouth dropped open slightly. He still gasped loudly, and his hand gripped her arm. His hair lay in damp strands around him. "Damned ... arachnid..." he muttered.

"We're going to patch this up," she said, as much to herself as to him. "And we'll go back to New York, and you can beat the crap out of Spider-Man. I've got to get the bullet out." She stretched, reaching with her free hand to snag a pair of long tweezers from a jar by her microscope.

"Heh..." he choked. His twitching seemed to lessen and his head rolled to one side. "Owe him a thrashing... for this whole ... fiasco ... anyway..." he mumbled.

"What did he do?" she asked to keep him talking while she eased up on the wound with her left.

Octavius gasped, his face twitching spasmodically. "He never stops, you know... unceasing juvenile prattle -" he coughed, a wet sound. "Had that seizure... while ... I was... fighting him..."

"Hold still," she warned him, holding his shoulder down as she poked the tweezers into the wound, following the hole down as gingerly as she could. She could feel it when it tapped against the bullet, wedged against the bone. As carefully as she could, she shifted to get a grip on it.

He made a breathless, wincing sound of pain, clenching his teeth. He twitched spasmodically, eyes rolling, and shuddered, still gasping.

"I'm sorry," she said through gritted teeth. She twisted the tweezers, got a firm grip on the flattened bullet, and pulled it out with a smooth jerk, throwing it aside and clamping her hand on the wound again, stemming the fresh flow of blood. "Out."

He moaned and grew still, chest still heaving. His head rolled to one side and went slack, lips parted, eyes closed.

She darted over to her medicine box and retrieved a roll of bandage and tape. "Talk to me, come on," she insisted back at his side. She pressed a folded square of gauze against the wound, and then replaced it when it reddened immediately.

"Nnnhhh..." he mumbled. "Whsss...ngh..." he swallowed laboriously. "How far... in ... did it ... go...?"

"Past the collar bone, up against the shoulder blade. It missed the ribs," she said, taping an additional pad of gauze over the wound, not taking the pressure off. "It missed all the big veins."

"Lucky ... that ... the last thing... I want is... to die at the hands... of some ... trained monkey... with a gun... humiliating..."

"You're not going to die," she snapped. "No one's going to die."

"Hahhhhhh... Hnhhhhhh..." his breathing seemed to calm somewhat. "Trust you..." he slurred. "by now..."

"I'm glad," she said, smiling. Her hand was shaking as she covered his hand, which was still on her arm.

The telephone rang again. Octavius slitted his eyes open and made a strange, sleepy grunting sound, but otherwise didn't move.

She looked at it. "If we don't answer that, they'll probably come in after you." She pulled away and picked up the phone, putting it to her good ear and answering hesitantly. "Hello."

"Doctor Holmes," Hanover's voice said. "How badly harmed are you?"

"My ear," she choked out. "He cut off my ear."

"Huh," Hanover grunted. "Bastard keeps his word, doesn't he?" There was a pause. "Is he injured?"

"No," she lied. "But he's really angry now."

"I'll bet," Hanover growled. "Put him on the phone."

She looked over at Otto, covering the mouthpiece with her hand and whispered. "Can you talk to him?"

"Hnnnh..." was his only reply. His eyelids fluttered but remained closed. His breathing had relaxed and he appeared to have fallen asleep, or perhaps floated in semiconsciousness.

She brought the receiver back to her ear. "He doesn't want to talk to you."

"Figures," Hanover replied. "He'll talk. Octavius won't shut up."

"He says he's not going to talk to you," she repeated, letting hysteria raise the pitch of her voice. "Please, don't make him angry again."

There was another pause as it appeared Hanover thought this over. "He really has got you scared, hasn't he?" he murmured. "Take care of that ear, Doctor Holmes. We'll have you out of there as soon as we can."

"Please," she said miserably. "Don't do anything to make him hurt me again."

"He won't hurt you again, Doctor Holmes," Hanover replied, hanging up.

She set the phone down and came back to Otto, sitting on the couch by his hip and checking his pulse. It was fast and uneven, a sign of shock. "I think it worked," she told him, brushing the hair out of his face.

His eyes slitted open and looked at her, watering painfully. He gritted his teeth and lifted his left hand, placing it against her face, in front of her sliced ear. It was cold. "Does... it hurt?" he mumbled.

She nodded. "But it's okay. Not as sharp as it was. Thank you for being fast."

"Heh..." he mumbled, his fingers moving against her face. "I almost wonder... if you... could reattach it..."

"I couldn't do it myself," she said, putting her hand over his. "But someone else could, potentially. If the . . . piece gets saved."

"Mnngh. Go... find it. Save ... for a while... could be soon enough...when you leave here."

She nodded and stood up, squeezing his hand before going out of the room, leaving the door open. Her ear throbbed as she went down the hall, a painful accompaniment to her pulse. The piece, almost the entire upper half of her ear, was lying on the floor just inside the door. She picked it up gingerly and got a handful of crushed ice from the refrigerator door, putting them both in a bowl and on the top shelf of the fridge. She had about eight hours, if the tissue didn't get too damaged. She looked at it sitting next to her milk and Brandon's left-over nachos, and shut the door before the surreality got to her again, turning and going back to the lab.


	6. Departure

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 6: Departure**

By Yumegari and LRH

Hanover paced back and forth, grumbling to himself, his hands behind his back and his brow furrowed. "Damned implacable..." he growled. He slammed a fist against the squad car hood. "Some Witness Protection!" He growled, glaring at Lynley. "Bastard walked right into her house!"

"We weren't expecting him to be here," Lynley defended himself. "It was a fifteen second news-blurb, and it only aired yesterday. And he's almost never left New York before."

Hanover shook his head. "What a mess," he said, leaning on the car hood. "We've got to get Holmes out of there. But he's got us blocked off every time!"

"Why do you think he wouldn't talk to us?" Lynley said, looking at the files again. "It's kind of against his style, isn't it?"

Hanover looked at him before shaking his head again. "By this point there's no telling what his 'style' is any more. He's gone completely 'round the twist instead of just mostly around it like he was before."

Lynley frowned. "Mad geniuses aren't something they train you to deal with in the academy. We need that weirdo who usually deals with people like him. What's his name, Spider-Man."

"You know how to contact him? It's not like he's got a Spider-Signal."

"Good point." He grimaced and rubbed his temple. "If we just storm the place, she's going to die. Last time he kidnapped her, he let her go when he was finished with whatever he needed her for."

"But last time, he wasn't surrounded. He's going to use her to bargain a way out, and that means taking her with him. We can't let that happen."

"No, we can't..." Hanover replied, sitting on the squad car and lapsing into silent thought. We certainly can't."

* * *

Clair sat down on the floor by the couch. "Is the local working?"

"Mmm," Octavius mumbled. He slitted his eyes open. "Somewhat," he mumbled. "So bright..."

"Oh, your glasses," she realized. She stood up and turned out the light. "Better? Do you think you can sit up? It'll help stop the bleeding."

With some difficulty, he pushed himself up, leaning against the arm of the couch. "What'd ... Hanover have ... to say?" he slurred, leaning his head sideways against the back of the couch.

She sat next to him, against his right side. "He just asked if you were wounded, and about my ear, and he told me that they'd have me out of here as soon as they could."

His hand slowly came up to curl his arm around her, cold fingers against her shoulder. "Mmm," he said. "Will they, now?"

"Not if I have anything to do with it," she answered, taking his hand in both of hers. "You're getting cold. Shock." Worried, she pulled the throw off the back of the couch and tucked it across his shoulders.

"Nnnnhh," he said, his eyes fluttering shut. "Sleepy. Something... tells me I ... shouldn't be..."

"Come on," she insisted. "Stay awake. It's almost time for the next injection. We're more than half done."

He sighed and forced his eyes open. "What's this stuff ... for, anyway?" he mumbled. His right hand tried to find hers again. Her scant warmth was better than nothing.

She held his hand, chafing it to warm it. "Dissolves the blood-clot. Otherwise, the ZJ won't make much difference." Clair looked at him, noting the rapid pulse in his wrist. She was unhappy with the amount of medication she was having to give him, but she got up and fetched an anti-shock medication from her cabinet. "This might help," she said, holding it up.

"Whatizzit?" he asked, blinking blearily at it.

"Anti-shock. It'll stabilize your heart-beat and help you wake up." She drew the amount. "I'm just worried, you have so many drugs in your system already."

"What's a few more?" he blithered deliriously, that half-smile flickering across his face again.

She nodded resignedly, and injected the new serum into his arm before picking up the t-PA and making that shot as well. "Only two left, now. We're nearly there."

He sighed a long sigh and waited. After a moment, it did seem as though his head cleared somewhat, as though he'd warmed up a little and his eyesight cleared. He looked up at her.

She grinned and moved over to the table, beginning to clear stuff off it onto the chair and shelves. "When this is all over, you're going to need to sleep for a week, you know."

"Mmmmmm, yes," he said, attempting to drag himself off of the couch. The brief notion that he'd sleep that week better with her there with him flickered through his mind.

She looked up from the notebook in her hands and stepped over to him, reaching out and planting a hand in the middle of his chest to keep him down. "Stay there. You're not as well as the drug is making you feel."

"Nonsense," he muttered. "Been through worse." He resumed his attempts to rise. "I was dead, once, you know that? Or at least so I've gathered. I think I can walk this off, so to speak."

"Sit down," she persisted, not removing her hand. "Between the blood-loss, the stroke, and the shock, you're in no condition to be on your feet at all."

He tilted his head forward a fraction, black eyes glittering in the dim light at her. "You'll need help if this is to be completed any time soon, won't you?"

"Yes," she admitted. "I don't want to risk putting you under this time, so I need to work out the alternate delivery. It'll be faster, easier. I just have to figure out the formula."

"Then let me up. I'll assist you with it."

She relented, helping him up before going back to her notebooks, picking absently at the blood that had dried on her neck while she studied her designs. "I think I can cobble this together with what I have, but it'll be a rough and dirty version of what it's supposed to be. The effects will be harsh."

He sat in the chair, leaning briefly against the table before looking up at her. "What's it meant to do, exactly? he asked, weakly gesturing with one hand to bring the notes closer.

She came over to him, standing with her shoulder against him. "The serum still acts like an infecting virus. Do you remember, last time, that the problem with just administering it was that it damaged the myelin sheath and let the neuron get infected. So it has go into the soma and only the soma, with no outside contact. This alteration would make a carrier virus, one that would bond to the neuron, deliver the serum to the soma, and then disintegrate."

He nodded. "Would that eliminate the need to extract a sample and then reintroduce it to the brain?"

"Entirely. You'd just inject the virus into the bloodstream." She tapped a list of chemical names in the notebook. "I don't have most of these, but they're refinements, to make the process easier on the patient. I just need..." she stared into space, running over her chemical inventory in her mind, and grimaced. "No, I don't have any prataxin." She swore badly.

"Is it necessary?"

"Very," she said, slamming the notebook down onto the table. "It's what will bond the serum to the virus. It's why I couldn't afford to test this before. Expensive, man-made chemical adherent."

His eyes flicked about the room. "Can anything be used as a substitute?"

"Nothing I have here," she said, cross with herself. "If I'd been thinking about it, I would have picked some up at the hospital. I feel like an idiot."

He sighed audibly. "There's only one thing for it. Give me the phone."

She caught on. "It's called prataxin chemoglobin, and it'll be in the university's lab at Harborview Medical," she supplied him, handing over the phone."I need about 3 grains."

He nodded, managing to hold it in his left hand while his right slowly dialed the numbers. However, lifting the thing proved painful as he got it about five inches up before hissing in pain and nearly dropping it.

She winced sympathetically and took the phone, holding it for him.

Hanover nearly jumped clean out of his suit when the cellular rang. He fumbled it up to his eyes and checked the readout. Holmes' number. What on earth could this be about, he wondered. He pressed the button to talk. "Holmes?" he asked. "Is that you?"

"No," the voice on the other side, instantly recognizable, told him.

"You finally deign to talk to us," Hanover growled.

"Not so glib now, are you?" Octavius sneered. "My demands have changed again, Hanover."

"How much longer are you going to do this, Octavius?" Hanover spat. "What more do you want from her and us?"

"Not much more, I assure you," Octavius replied smoothly. "I need you to send someone to retrieve something for Doctor Holmes."

"Oh? What?"

Octavius looked at the chemical name he'd had her scribble down. "Prataxin chemoglobin," he read. Over the phone, Hanover swore. Octavius chuckled. "Not exactly something one can stop into the local convenience store for, is it? She tells me it can be found in the University laboratory at Harborview Medical. She will need three grains of it. Can that be arranged for us, Mister Hanover?"

Hanover tore the sheet off his note-taking pad that he'd scribbled this down on, thrusting it at Lynley. When he looked about to object, Hanover covered the phone and hissed, "We have to get him what he wants. No telling what this psychotic bastard'll cut off of her next!"

"Is this even a real word?" Lynley muttered, staring at it. But he didn't argue, and jogged across to his car, skidding out of her driveway, through the veritable parking lot of police cars, and off towards the freeway.

Hanover returned to the phone. "Someone's going to the University to get it."

"Good, good," Octavius purred. "I expect you to telephone me again when it arrives. You will be instructed how to deliver it to us then." He nodded at Clair to hang up the phone.

Clair clicked the phone off and set it aside. "Well, there's work we can do on it before it gets here. I have the base viral form, but it needs modified so it degrades when it's supposed to."

He nodded. "What does that entail, exactly?" He sighed. "My memory of chemistry is foggy at best," he admitted, eyes dropping and slipping to the side.

She opened the chemical storage cooler and took out two vials, then snagged a third from the shelf next to it. "I've got to bond an acid-complex to the virus, but the acid-complex has to be coated with a protein shell so it doesn't work too quickly. I can fine-tune it to about four hours, which is more than enough to let the serum do its job."

With a soft, contemplative sound, he pulled the notebook across the table toward him and opened it, flipping through its pages with nerveless fingers, scanning its content. He drew his eyes down a page, flip, another page, flip... He looked up briefly as she spoke, then returned his attention to reading.

She pulled a sterile vial out of a drawer and tipped a tiny quantity of the protein-suspension into it, setting it into a stand and using a syringe to measure out an even smaller amount of the acid-complex. She glanced at him, reading her notes. "Anything interesting to you?"

"Hnnn," he said, one finger tapping slowly against the paper. "This protein you're using for the buffer shell will prevent the acid from bonding. Its molecular structure is too dense."

"What?" She looked up, tipping her glasses up to look at the page through them. She blinked at the numbers there. "You're right. How in the world did I miss that?" She set the needle-full of acid down and checked the label of the protein. "You're right."

He smirked as if to say, _Still got it. _"I'm sure you have a less-densely structured protein to use. A natural one, perhaps?"

She nodded. "I have a lighter protein, from another project. It's plant-based, but it's simple enough that it should still work just fine." She got out the other protein and checked the molecular weight written on its label. She handed the new vial to Otto. "Think that'll work?"

He peered at it. "It should, if I remember correctly."

Clair nodded and took the vial back, measuring its contents into a new test tube and holding it up to the light that filtered in through the curtained windows. She added the acid carefully and swirled the tube, mixing them.

He returned his attention to the notes. "Fascinating," he murmured after a moment.

She continued to mix the solution with a glass pipette, then set it aside and picked up the vial of viral base, checking its label. It was a little older than she would have liked, but as long as it was still active... She smeared a drop onto a slide and slid it under the microscope, smiling when she saw the tiny forms milling around mindlessly.

There was a beat after which Octavius cleared his throat. When she looked up, he gestured to the side of his head, raising one eyebrow. "Don't you think you ought to..."

She raised her hand reflexively, almost but not touching the mess of her ear. "Oh. I probably should bandage it." Concern for him had distracted her, and it had nearly stopped bleeding. She stepped back from the microscope and wet a pad of gauze to clean away as much of the spilled blood as she could before awkwardly trying to fix a square over it, getting the tape tangled.

"Come over here," he said, a little exasperatedly.

She pulled a piece of tape out of her hair with a grimace and went to him. "Could you just hold my hair back? It keeps getting in the way."

Slowly, he reached out, slipping the fingers of his right hand into her hair and holding it against her head. With a wince of pain, he brought the other up to press the bandage against her ear. His fingers were warm again, though not as much as before.

With his help, she finally got it fixed in place, pulling out the strands of hair that had been caught in the tape. "That should do it." She turned her head to look at him. "Thank you."

He nodded, carefully moving her hair back over her ear before returning his attention to the notes.

She went back to her vials, carefully measuring one into the other and stirring them, then making another slide and checking it. "Good," she murmured. She could see the protein-coated strands being absorbed by the viruses, exactly as they were supposed to.

Looking up from the notes at her murmured comment, Octavius drew in a breath to speak, when a siren made itself heard. He whipped his head to stare at the window. "What the-"

"Maybe it's the prataxin," she said hopefully. "He could have made it there and back by now."

"Hnnnn, it had better be," he growled, his gaze not leaving the window. His fingers twitched.

The siren died as a car skidded to a halt in the gravel, and Clair nodded. "The sooner we get it, the better." They didn't have to wait long for the phone to ring again.

Clair looked at it for a beat, and picked it up in the middle of its second ring. "I'm here."

"Doctor Holmes," said Hanover's voice on the other end, sounding harried. "We have the prataxin you need. Mind telling us what you need it for?"

"I can't," she said tensely. She pressed the mute button on the phone so Hanover couldn't hear her speak to Otto. "How should they get it to us?"

He thought for a moment. "We can't have them deliver it to you, they'd simply take you and run," he mused. Eventually he sighed. "They'll have to deliver it to me."

"They'll shoot you!" she protested. "They don't know you're already wounded."

"What else is there for it?" he demanded. "If we both go to the door to receive it, it'll simply be a repeat of last time!"

"Mm," she said, thinking. "Both of us, but you stay behind the door. Close enough to be a threat, but out of the line of fire."

He looked at her for a few beats before sitting back in the chair again. "All right, then," he said quietly. "This had better work," he added after a beat.

She put the phone back to her and thumbed off the mute. "He says to tell you to bring the Prataxin to the front door. We'll meet you there."

Hanover was apparently thinking this over, as a moment of silence greeted her statement. "Okay," he said cautiously. "We'll bring it to the door." He hung up.

"Show time," she quipped, trying to lighten the situation. "Again." She offered her hand to help him up. "What was it you said about a career as an actor?"

He took it, bracing against it to stand, wincing and hissing with pain. "Aheh. It may be safer than my present occupation seems to be nowadays." He picked up the sword and draped his right arm over her. "Anyone can get a career onscreen these days, it seems."

"It seems that way sometimes." They moved out to the entry way. "Alright, here we go. Last time we should have to deal with them until we get your mind working right again."

He heaved a gusty sigh. "Let's hope so. I grow weary of this... maddening vulnerability." He hefted the sword in his left and, gritting his teeth, and pulled the door open, using it for support and standing more or less behind it.

She stepped forward, raising a hand to shield her face from the headlights. It was completely dark now, but the yard was brightly lit and crowded. She could see a crowd of reporters behind a police blockade, and no less than three helicopters were overhead.

Hanover stood on the sidewalk, a white paper bag in his hand. He came forward, his canny gaze taking in her bandaged head and hollowed, frightened eyes, and the shadow behind her, the sword it held glinting in the light of the halogens. He appeared to weigh his options until eventually he held out the bag for her to take. "Good to see you're at least doing somewhat all right, Doctor Holmes," he said.

She nodded silently, glanced behind herself, and took the bag, crushing the paper in her hand. Inside, she could feel the tiny ampule.

Octavius stirred behind her, the sword arm coming up and curling slowly around her, sword pointing upward. He pulled her back. "You have our thanks for this, Mister Hanover," he growled softly.

"I'd say 'you're welcome,' but it's ridiculous in a situation like this one," Hanover replied. "Get it done and over with, whatever you're forcing her to do, Octavius. The sooner we bring you in, the better."

He could swear he saw the glint of light off teeth as the shadow that was Octavius grinned. "We shall see, Hanover, when this is finished."

Hanover glared at him in anger and maybe a little fear before turning and walking back down the sidewalk toward the squad cars.

Clair stared after him in desperation until the door shut, at which point she twitched and bit her lip to keep from laughing. "This is working," she said, opening the bag and pulling out the prataxin. She spotted his glasses on the floor, where they had fallen earlier and picked them up, reaching up to slip them onto his face. "We're almost done."

He almost seemed relieved at having the dark lenses over his eyes again and the corner of his mouth twitched upward briefly. "Good," he said. "He was right about one thing, this does need to get done, and the sooner the better." They made their slow way back to the lab and the couch, where he dropped himself heavily on the cushions. Frank lifted his head with a soft _brrrt _and looked up at him.

She got out the serum and set about measuring it and the doctored virus into separate test tubes, checking her watch, then added a few drops of the prataxin to the later, finally mixing them all together. "Just have to check, see if it's bonding..." she said distractedly, making yet another slide. Frank crossed the couch and settled himself on Octavius' hip while she watched through the microscope. She adjusted the focus, checked her notes, and then grinned hugely.

He looked up from eyeing the cat dubiously to see that grin. "Good news, I take it?"

She nodded and stepped back, doing that same strange little momentary victory dance that she had done years ago in his lab, when a sample was successfully infected with the ZJ for the first time. "Take a look. It's beautiful."

He pushed himself to his feet, swaying until he reached the table, and made his way across the room until he reached the microscope, leaning down and peering into the eyepiece.

In the microscope's view, the active parts of the serum were being absorbed into the modified virii, speeding them up, giving them a purposeful motion.

Clair stilled herself with effort, but the grin remained. She brushed her hair back from her face and went back to the table, watching the slide as though she could see the microscopic activity, her face intent.

Octavius straightened slowly, turning to look at her. "How quickly will this virus spread?" he asked.

"Very quickly," she said. "I think. I don't think more than twenty minutes to infect the entire brain, repairing as it goes. But the effects, the stimulation will last longer, because the virus won't degrade that fast and the serum isn't hidden in existing neural tissue."

Octavius made his way back to the couch, appearing more frustrated with his condition than usual. He dropped himself onto the thing and sighed gustily, watching her expectantly. "One more dose of that t-PA, right?" he muttered after a moment.

"Yes." She checked her watch again. "In about ten minutes. This will be ready by then. Do you want to take them at the same time?"

He closed his eyes and nodded. "It'll be done more quickly that way."

Clair opened her mouth to say something more, then paused and shut it. Setting the test tube of Zombie Virus into the holder on the table, she came over and sat next to Otto, curling her feet under her again and leaning against his right shoulder. "So, what happens next?" she asked quietly, absently petting Frank.

He grew quiet, gazing ahead and blinking slowly. A quiet sigh. "I leave this place. I can't stay here, obviously. I'll go back to New York. Back to what I've been doing and will continue to do." He turned to look at her. "And... if you still so desire. I'll ... take you with me," he finished, as though coming to a realization.

"I'd like that," she said softly, looking down at her hands. "Today... today has been the strangest, well, second strangest day of my life, and yet..." She was struggling for words, and she looked up, into his eyes. "I'm more... content than I've been in years." She shook her head. "That's not the right word."

"What is, then?" he asked, gazing at her, that intense gaze that seemed to let nothing escape its notice.

"Happy. Confident. Warm." Her hand found his, wrapped around it. "Needed." There was a question in her eyes now.

"Yes," he replied, and again, it sounded like a realization. His eyes focused on her again. "You may be right," he finished slowly. He leaned toward her slowly. "Yes," he murmured, his eyes slipping shut. "Needed..." His lips met hers again, burning hot.

She responded, molding her mouth to his. Heat rolled through her, searing her nerves. She held her breath, didn't need to breath. The moment could have lasted forever.

The kiss was a long one, certainly longer than he'd intended. And yet, a memory stirred. This was how he'd always done it, though so long ago as to have been another lifetime entirely. Memories of that time had slowly returned, an idea here, a habit there. The cigars had made him cough violently. This, however, this was something he could get used to.

She broke away reluctantly, at last, for air, feeling as though she would catch fire any moment. She kept her eyes closed, happy merely to feel his presence, his skin against hers.

He sighed and nuzzled lightly against her neck for a moment, taking in her scent. Green apples. Her hair still smelt like green apples. He brought his hand up to her neck and then into her hair, fingers twining in the strands, and his lips grazed her neck as he whispered, "Needed... we're both needed, aren't we?" He slowly pressed his lips against her neck, right under her ear.

"Oh yes," she answered on an indrawn breath, tipping her head back, her hand threading into his hair as well. It tangled around her wrist, then slid free. She turned her head, capturing his mouth again briefly. Their glasses knocked together, and she laughed.

This served to snap him out of it, somewhat. His hand still lingering in her hair, he gazed at her, a smile tugging briefly at his lips again. His lips parted and a breathless beat passed as he looked into her eyes before he spoke, softly: "We should ... yes, we should get this done." His eyes flicked toward the table.

She took a deep breath, fought down the sudden upsurge of disappointment, and nodded against his hand. "Yes." She untangled her hand from his hair and straightened her glasses, kissing him once more, lightly, before getting up. She got the t-PA and the Zombie Virus and the last two syringes from the box and came back, sitting cross-legged on the couch next to him while she drew the doses. "Remember last time?" she asked, tapping the Zombie one and checking it for air.

"Vaguely," he replied, looking off into the distance.

"This time will be much like that, but a little harsher, I think. Faster, as I said. Are you ready?"

He closed his eyes and nodded, pushing his right arm toward her and leaning back into the couch.

She injected first the t-PA and then the ZV into the vien, then soothed the irritated site with a kiss. Not letting go of his hand, she settled into the hollow of his shoulder. "Give it a minute to reach the brain," she said, watching his face intently.

His eyes remained closed, and he lay back, waiting, counting each breath, until he came to notice that, with every breath, things seemed to tighten. Crystallize into exquisitely sharp relief. Hyperfocus. Not painful, but something just as knife-edged. Full of that same pins-and-needles sensation, as though blood had returned to his _brain_. He twitched under that sensation. The light, even through his shades, blinded him, the slight sounds of room deafened, the myriad of mixed, unidentifiable scents exploded between his eyes and he curled inward, nearly falling off the couch.

Clair caught him, keeping him from toppling forward. Mindful of the increased sensitivity that she knew he was enduring, she tried to touch only his clothes. "Careful," she murmured quietly.

He made a strangled sound. The slight warmth of her hands burned his skin and his own clothing chafed it almost intolerably. He'd almost rid himself of his shirt entirely when he began to twitch, jerking and trembling, muscles tremoring of their own accord. He flopped backwards and gasped in a huge breath, trying desperately to still the twitching before his arms and legs flew off.

Her eyes widened as she watched him. It wasn't supposed to be this severe! She half-stood and leaned over him, pinning his spasming arms to the couch before he hurt his shoulder anew.

He breathed hard, his eyes fluttering open, and saw her standing over him, holding him down, and an irrational panic seized him. He cried out, clenching his fists and thrashing his way free only to roll off the couch entirely. Almost as quickly as it had come, the spasming died down to the occasional twitch and he curled on the floor, his hands to his head as a dizziness washed over him, receded, dredged up every thought he could have possibly had and then dumped them all on his consciousness, like a wall full of television screens all tuned to different channels. He moaned and screwed his eyes shut again, fingers curling, nails digging into his scalp, his legs curled in and twitching.

She scrambled off the couch and crouched next to him, her hands hovering. She wanted to help him, but there was nothing she could do other than wait for him to master it himself.

He writhed as a sudden fire coursed through him, flaring up a sudden almost painful _need_, all the more maddening for its unidentifiability. His skin grew unbearably hot, his insides pulled themselves out through an unknown source, taking every last drop of moisture from his mouth and throat, a sudden pulling, achingly crawling sensation made itself felt below his middle. He felt his mind slipping, a sudden loss of control, a sudden headlong plunge into madness, into nightmares, and he cried out, hands clawing at his head, eyes wide and staring, as he rolled onto his back, still writhing, trying to escape his own skin. His heart would explode, his brain would twist itself into lost madness.

She watched, horrified at what her invention was doing to him. When he began to claw at his head, she grabbed his hands, holding them firmly and shouting. "Otto! Look at me, you can handle this, you can get through this. Please, come back!"

His fingers curled round hers in a crushing grip-causing her to notice almost detachedly that he'd already regained full functionality to his affected right side-and his eyes snapped toward her as though seeing her for the first time. "Ghj..." he spluttered incoherently, still twitching. "Hngh... ngeh... kkkhh... can't... can't..." He moaned breathlessly again, gasping rapidly, his eyes losing focus. "Don... lemme... hhttt... die... again..." he jerked harder, eyes rolling now, and frothed. "HNGAH..." He cried out, back arching, and tremored for an instant before going limp, limbs trembling weakly, eyes half open and unfocussed, his breath loud.

"You're not going to die!" she shouted, desperately checking his pulse, touching his face. "Otto, Otto, please, can you hear me? Answer me!"

His breathing began to slow, and his eyes slipped shut. His face was pale and slick with sweat, his hair damp. It calmed further, his head stirring limply with the motion of his chest, lips parted. His fingers curled, seeking her hand.

"Come on," she continued, half-crying as she took his hand, half-crushing it. "Please, you can't leave me, not now. Stay with me, come back, please, Otto, please. Open your eyes, Otto, look at me, please. Let me know you're alright."

Another moment passed. His eyes slitted open and looked at her. "'Sssthe first time... you've ... said my name..." he mumbled, blinking up at her.

She shook with a sob of relief and smiled, wiping her eyes. "I didn't need to call you before. You were right there." She hugged him tightly, and he could feel her shuddering. "Ah lord. I thought I'd killed you."

"Nonsense," he mumbled, his arms curling around her. "It'd take ... more than that to kill me ... you silly girl." He closed his eyes again, his senses finally clear again. Just as they had been last time, again, thanks to her. Clair really was a name that suited her.

"I'm so sorry," she mumbled against his shoulder, not willing to let go, get any farther away than she was right now. "I didn't think it would do anything like that."

"That's the nature of the beast," he said, sitting upright and allowing her to wrap around him. One hand toyed with her hair and he leaned on the other. "Experiments always carry with them unpredictabilities. Else they wouldn't be experiments." His fingertips gently rubbed against her scalp.

She clung to him, careful of his left shoulder. "I should have waited, tested it first." She closed her eyes and pressed her head up against his hand, for all the world like a cat.

He chuckled briefly at that, and she could feel his voice rumbling in his chest more than she could hear it in her ears. "You should know by now, that with me that's never an option." He grew silent for a moment, then spoke again: "As much as I would love to sit here on this floor with you in my arms, there's still the matter of the police presence surrounding your house."

She opened her eyes. "You've still got your hostage. You can negotiate your way out of here, right? My car's still in the garage."

"Hnnn," he said, thinking. He stood, swaying only slightly, and walked to the lab door, stopping for just a moment and looking down. "Something tells me I'll end up never taking walking for granted again," he muttered before opening the door and stepping out into the house proper, sticking to the shadows and ducking under the windows as he made his way across it to where he remembered the garage door to be.

She followed him, turning on the garage light. Her LeBaron was there, the lovely red convertible that had been waiting for her when Lynley first brought her here, but there was also Brandon's giant, sleek SUV, gleamed dark chrome under the fluorescent lights.

Octavius seemed to size up the vehicles. "Who does that belong to?" he asked, gesturing to the SUV.

"That's Brandon's," she said. "Brand new. He just got it two weeks ago, from a custom dealer up north." She looked sideways at him, conspiratorially. "It might get better gas milage."

A slow grin spread across his face, probably the most wicked grin she'd ever seen in her life. "Perfect," he purred.

She grinned too, although the evilness was lacking, and lifted the spare keys from the rack just inside the door, jingling them. "Come on, help me pack. I'm not leaving everything behind."

He raised a brow at her. "Just what are you thinking of bringing with you?" he asked as he followed her inside.

"Just my work," she said, heading back to the lab. She started gathering up the scattered notebooks and chemicals, packing the latter carefully into an insulated case.

He stopped and picked up his shirt, slipping it back on, wincing a little as he pulled at the wound in his shoulder. After buttoning it, he put on his coat, looking a little sadly at the blood-stained hole in the left shoulder. "Pity," he murmured. He buttoned that, too.

She looked up from her scavenging of the chemical storage locker. "Is that the same coat you had last time?"

"Yes," he said, picking up the sword and the other half of the walking stick. "I'd actually grown rather fond of it. Ah well, I can always procure another one."

She looked around, checking for a last few things, and handed the small case of chemicals to Otto, shouldering the substantial stack of books herself. "That's it from here," she started to say, but then a soft _brrt _from the vicinity of her ankle made her look down at Frank, who seemed to know that something was going on. She looked back up at Otto. "You mind if he comes?"

Octavius opened his mouth to object. The last thing he needed about the place was animals. They got in the way, they shed hair all over, you couldn't sit anywhere without finding a cat in the way or on your lap or in your work two seconds later, they destroyed valuable things... they purred next to your head and kneaded your skin with soft paws and really, weren't he and Frank more similar than either would probably care to admit? Both had had their lives saved by that Zombie Juice stuff, after all. He looked down at the cat, who flicked his ears and made that same _brrrt _sound again. He heaved a sigh, hefting the case in his arm. "Oh, all right," he harrumphed.

She smiled up at him and made her way out to the SUV, unlocking the rear and putting her stack of books in haphazardly, then going back for Frank and his leash. She stopped in her own room, looking around to see if there was anything she needed.

Octavius found himself stopping behind her as she looked ito the bedroom. He looked down at her, watching her face.

She looked back at him, only the mildest regret on her face. "I told you, this wasn't my life. I never really lived here." She dug a few pieces of clothing out of the closet, choosing for anonymity, and stuffed them into a string bag. "It's just a place I stayed for a while."

He stood in the doorway, watching her silently, his face expressionless. Presently, he nodded. "I understand," he said, his voice a quiet rumble as he looked about the room. Presently, he stepped inside and led her back out the door.

Despite her words, her shoulders were set and tense as she put the last things and Frank into the SUV. "Do I drive?" she asked, holding the keys out between them.

He raised an eyebrow. "You're joking, right?"

"Right. New York. I didn't learn until I got here either." She opened the driver's side door and paused, looking at her car. "I'm going to miss my baby," she said, patting it, and, on an impulse, taking the grinning foam ball off of its antennae and pocketing it.

Still standing next to her, he touched her hair. "I'll find you one just like it," he murmured, a smirk on his face.

She shook her head. "Where would I keep one in New York?"

His arm slipped around her and he leaned in, kissing her neck. "Mmm, I could find space. It's all in where you live, after all."

"Hmmm," she said, closing her eyes. "Where do you live now, anyway? Still where you took me, or have you 'relocated'?"

"Same place," he murmured against her neck, both arms now curling around her. "I rather like it there, but I could always find a new place. It's not hard if you know where to look."

"We should get going," she said reluctantly.

"Yes, we should," he said, finally letting go of her. He turned and opened the door, climbing into the seat behind the driver's. She got into the driver's seat and, after looking back to see that he was ready, thumbed the switch that opened the garage door. It set of a flurry of excitement outside.

"What the hell!" Hanover spluttered, coffee spraying as he executed a marvelous spit-take. The other cops and SWAT team riflemen raised their weapons as the SUV backed slowly out of the garage.

Octavius grinned and lifted the sword again, angling it so that it lay across Clair's neck. He leaned forward and licked her ear briefly before tightening his grip on the sword.

Hanover jogged up to the car, gun in hand, and tried to peer through the window. "Doctor Holmes?" he said, tapping on the window. "Is that you in there?"

She stifled her smile instantly when Hanover approached, replacing it with the frightened, frozen look that she had been using all day. She pressed the button, lowering the automatic window an inch, but didn't say anything.

Hanover peered through the crack, seeing her frightened eyes and the sword. He backed up a pace. "What the hell are you doing, Octavius?" demanded, shock evident in his tone.

"She is needed further," Octavius replied. "That's all you need to know."

"Damnit, that's not all I need to know!" Hanover shouted, bringing up his gun, trying to aim into the vehicle's backseat. "Step out of the vehicle, Octavius, or I swear to God I'll shoot you here!"

The sword moved a fraction of an inch. "I wouldn't risk it, Hanover," he said quietly. "You'll notice I've made something of a recovery."

Indeed, Hanover noticed that the sword was gripped in Octavius' right hand, which seemed fully functional now. His gun wavered.

"Drive," Octavius said, nudging at Clair with the sword.

She pressed her foot down, forcing Hanover to step back rapidly as the car sprayed gravel out of the driveway. She rolled up her window, looking in the rear view mirror as the various police scrambled into their cars to make chase, but she had enough of a head start to make the first light before they could turn around.

Hanover ran back to his car as the men dispersed into vehicles and the chase began, sirens already wailing, lights already flashing. He threw himself into the vehicle and started it, tearing off after the SUV as it sped down the street, five squad cars and a van after it.

Clair sped under the yellow light at the main road, crossing it and swinging immediately into a tight turn that took her down towards the water, into a labyrinth of warehouses and boat yards. The police followed closely as they raced through the empty parking lots.

She swerved to miss a stack of empty crates, hauling on the wheel to make the turn. "My car was a lot lighter touch," she remarked, irritated by the SUV's heavier handling. She circled around, leading them, and got back on the main road. She swerved into the narrow on-ramp that led them up onto the Fremont bridge, just as yellow lights alongside it began to flash, and a shrill bell rang. Clair looked down to see a ship approaching the bridge. It had started to open, but she stamped on the gas, hurtling around the barriers and across the narrow, widening gap. "I don't think they'll follow us across that," she laughed, exhilarated.

Octavius looked back through the rear window. "We're not out of the woods yet," he said. "They'll radio for backup to head us off on the other side."

She didn't take her eyes off the road, coming off the bridge. She could hear sirens approaching again, from ahead of them, so she got off the highway, hoping to disappear in the convoluted streets of this much older part of Seattle. The roads were nearly empty this late in the evening, and she dodged around the rare slower traffic.

"Alright," she said, thinking aloud. "They're going to expect you to run east, right? So let's go north. What ID did you use to get on the plane? Do you still have it?" She circled a block in the residential area, turning towards the taller buildings of the city center.

He dug in a pocket of his longcoat until he found what he was looking for, a black billfold from which he pulled a small ID card. "Here it is," he said. "Heh. Looks nothing like me."

"That'll do. You have no idea how easy it is to get across the border up here." She wound warily through the city, passing by the Space Needle and the EMP.

A moment of silence lapsed as they drove and Octavius watched the Space Needle come into view. His gaze wandered and he gave a start. "Good lord, what in the world is that!" he yelped, pointing at the... he _guessed _it was supposed to be a building, under it.

"The Experience Music Project," Clair growled, looking over her shoulder to switch lanes. She could hear sirens, but she saw no lights for the moment. "Any time you want to blow _that _up, you have my support. And you'll probably get a medal."

"It looks as though I'd do several million in civic improvement," he muttered darkly. "It looks as though someone sneezed the contents of a high-school art class onto a vacant lot and enlarged it."

"Close," she grinned. "It was designed by Frank O'Gehry. There's something wrong with that man that not even the Zombie Juice could fix. Parts of it _move_." She made an expression of distaste, but then they left the monstrosity behind as she approached the express lanes. "Did we leave them behind?"

"I'd only just regained a measure of my sanity, Clair, don't endanger it by describing any further that travesty of architecture," he replied, looking out the side and back windows. "And no, it doesn't look as though they're behind us at the moment."

"Wonderful." She joined into the faster traffic heading north through the express lanes, and before long, they had left Seattle behind. She relaxed into the rhythm of the light traffic. "So. My plan is to cross into Canada and head for the East coast. Borders are easy at this end, but I don't now about that end. Do you?"

"Hmm?" he said, a little distracted. He looked up at her. "I've never exactly fled the country. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea." He returned his attention to the billfold. "Hnnn," he observed.

"Can I see it?" she asked, looking in the rear view mirror. "Fake ID's and stuff like that fascinate me. On a purely academic level, of course." She smirked, widening her eyes innocently.

He shook his head, smiling slightly. "Very well," he said, handing it over. What she saw while trying to keep her eyes on the road was the name "Oliver Ostzynski" and what looked like an old photo that had been digitally sharpened, of a rotund man with a bowl cut of dark hair of unidentifiable colour and thick glasses, wearing a somewhat startled expression. A second glance told her there was something familiar about the man's features.

She snorted. "Oliver? And who is that?" She looked between the card and the face in her rear view mirror. "Is that you?"

Octavius pulled a face. "Yes," he admitted, reaching out a hand for the card. "Anyone who even notices the difference looks upon it as an improvement and thus don't suspect." He examined the picture again. "I'm inclined to agree with them-I've no idea what I was thinking then..."

"The way you look now is definitely an improvement. As for what you were thinking, it probably went something along the lines of 'my hair's getting in the way of this experiment. Better get it cut,' and that's it." She fingered her own shortened hair. "Been there."

"Hnnn," he rumbled contemplatively. "I'm sure it was something along those lines, I can't quite remember." He pulled in a breath and sighed.

"Something bothering you?" she asked, riffling one-handed through Brandon's collection of CDs. Most of them were hers anyway, she noted sourly.

"Hmm? No. Not really. I'd come to terms with it a long time ago. No, I think the ..." Here he yawned cavernously. "...euphoria and the adrenaline are wearing off..."

"Take a nap," she said, smiling. "I'll wake you up if anything's going to happen." Outside the car, it started to rain, a typical Seattle shower, no more really than falling mist.

"Nonsense," he said, rubbing his face. "I've done quite enough sleeping for now."

It started to rain harder as they got farther north. Clair left the freeway at Marysville and followed a long side road that would eventually reconnect to it, just to throw off any possible trail. As they passed through a small town, Clair asked, "Do you want to get something to eat? There's a drive-through here..." She looked in the rearview mirror again.

His head had fallen to the side, hair draping on either side of his face, his hands lying loosely in his lap. If she listened carefully, she could hear a soft snoring.

She sighed, smiling, and drove on through the night. It was just past midnight when they reached the border, and she reached back and tapped him awake. "We're here."

"Hmmm?" he said, forcing his eyes open. "Where, exactly, is 'here?'"

"The border. Come on, they'll want to see your ID, 'Oliver.'" She pulled forward to the customs booth, where a very tired man in a uniform checked their IDs, asked them if they had any vegetables or radioactive materials, and waved them through.

Octavius snickered quietly as they pulled through the guard station and onto Canadian soil, shaking his head.

"See what I mean? The borders here are a joke, and it's even easier to get back in. If you've got Washington plates, they just wave you straight through." She drove on, watching the signs along the road. When she spotted a rest stop, she took the exit and parked in the darkest corner of its parking lot. "Sleep sounds like a really excellent idea, don't you think?"

"Mmmm-hm," he mumbled sleepily, already having found a corner to lean into. He cracked open an eye and looked at her.

She crawled over the seat and curled up next to him, her head on his shoulder. Her breathing slowed to match his, and his heartbeat was a comforting rhythm under her good ear.

He curled his arms around her, his fingers idly slipping into her hair. "Sleep sounds like an excellent idea, indeed," he murmured. He sighed, a long, slow sound, his fingers curling and uncurling lazily in her hair, more and more slowly until they stopped altogether and the soft buzz of his snoring could be heard.


	7. Transition

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 7: Transition**

By Yumegari and LRH

Clair woke to a cramped neck and a sense of acute disorientation. Bird song and the back seat of Brandon's SUV did not generally figure into her morning. She sat up groggily, pushing her hair out of her face and yawning. She looked at Otto, who was still snoring, one arm loosely around her waist, and remembered yesterday. She rolled her shoulders to work out the kinks from the night, collared Frank from his adopted bed on the drivers's seat, and opened the door that Otto wasn't leaning against, getting out to stretch.

There was a brightness around him. And he felt a little colder for some reason. He blinked his eyes open, seeing that the sun had come up, and pushed his shades back up the bridge of his nose. Clair had already woken and was, he could see, now, outside the vehicle, stretching. At least that accounted for the chill. He watched her through the open door.

Blinking groggily, she linked her fingers and stretched her arms up as far as she could, rising up onto her toes and arching her back. It was a fair morning, with just a damp chill left from last night's rain. She ran her fingers through her hair again, trying to wake the rest of the way up.

"Mmmmh," he said, rubbing his face. He yawned and blinked, watching her stretch further. Ordinarily, it would be a pleasant sight, indeed, but he was too sleepy still, to register more than the neutral observation.

She turned around, tugging Frank's leash to keep him away from something dead in the grass. "Oh, good morning," she noted sleepily. "I'm not much of a morning person. How 'bout you?"

"Mmh," he said, pushing himself further upright. "For the longest time I was happily in denial that morning even existed," he mumbled.

"It'd be nice if that would work, wouldn't it?" she agreed. "But it rarely does." She got back into the backseat and shut the door, setting Frank in the far back. "I'm not ready to get going, just yet."

"Why, what are you planning on doing instead?" he asked, eyeing her.

She leaned against him again, looking at him from under a raised eyebrow. "I was planning on going back to sleep," she said, overly innocent as one hand drifted up to lie against the angle of his neck. "Did you have another idea?"

"Hmmmm," he rumbled. "I might." He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the knuckles before moving to the tip of her index finger, his lips closing around it.

She smiled, moving closer and kissing him on the corner of the jaw, letting him keep her hand while she moved down, planting tiny, feather-light kisses down the line of his neck to his collar. "I like your idea," she murmured.

His breath caught for a fraction of an instant, then he sighed. "Really?" he purred, her finger still against his lips, "I'm told my ideas are usually brilliant." His other arm curled around her, pulling her closer to him, and he placed her finger between his lips again, tongue grazing its very tip.

"I can see why," she answered, pulling her hand away and replacing it with her lips. "Genius and all, you know." She opened her mouth against his, tongue flicking against his upper lip.

His arms tightened around her and his lips captured hers in a long, deep kiss. He growled softly in his throat, hands creeping up her back and down again. The heat from his body was already intense, fingers little hot points against her spine.

She could feel his warmth straight through her blouse, burning her in a way that she never wanted to escape. She arched against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders, holding him as close as he held her.

* * *

Some time later, she claimed another light kiss from his lips as she lay under him, smiling. "You were right. We are both needed."

"Mmmmh," he sighed. "Indeed." He rested his head against her neck, lips occasionally kissing the salty skin there.

Clair began to feel the pressure. "Mm," she said reluctantly. "I hate to move, but I can't draw a deep breath."

"Nn? Nnnh." He pushed himself upright and winced, hissing with pain, one hand going up to the bandage on his shoulder. He looked at it, seeing it was stained red again. Clair sat up, pushing him back so she could get the bandages in the light. She peeled them up, looking under the edge. "It's opened up again," she said guiltily. "I'll re-bandage it."

She leaned over the seat, grabbing the new first aid kit from under her toppled stack of books. She opened the little sterile paper packet of gauze and the roll of tape. The bullet wound was bleeding sluggishly. She pressed a new pad to it, holding it there firmly.

She taped the fresh gauze down snugly, then kissed the shoulder in benediction. She felt so incredibly serene right now, warm and safe.

He sighed, rubbing his shoulder, and thoughts seemed to return to him, though this time he wasn't sure he wanted them to. He curled an arm around her and kissed her lips almost absently. The desire to simply stay like this was a natural one and a strong one, but the back of his mind kept nagging at him that this was not exactly the time or place to start enjoying life. Get back home, first, then explore this odd contentment. Get back home, get your actuators back, get some sleep, explore contentment. With a plan in mind, he looked out the front window. "This isn't the place to linger," he murmured, his lips against her cheek.

Clair nodded reluctantly. "We should get going."

He sat back, carefully slipping his shirt on over his injured shoulder, and buttoning it. The vague thought that it sure was good to have both hands again made itself felt. As he shrugged his coat back on with the question "What ever did you see in that boy?" He looked about the interior of the vehicle, noting the irony of her having stolen her boyfriend's most prized possession only to sleep with someone else in it. A smirk crossed his features.

Climbing back into the front seat and finding her shoes where she had kicked them off last night, she paused to consider that. "I'm not sure. We met two years ago, when I did a lecture on genetics and neurological disorders at his university. He made some... very flattering comments afterwards, and things progressed from there." She thought about it some more, pulling her socks on. "It might have been the violin. He could play beautifully. Not emotional, though. Precise. Some of the critics call him mechanical. Watching him play..." She looked up, her eyes distant. "Was a little like watching you, when you stand perfectly still, all movement expressed through the actuators."

He tilted his head to the side slightly, regarding her as though seeing something new about her. Perhaps he was.

"When he lost his scholarships a few months ago, I let him move in with me." She tied her shoes with a complicated knot. "Big mistake."

He raised his eyebrows at that. "I almost hesitate to ask why," he remarked drily.

"Well, you met him. As soon as his stuff was moved in, he developed this edge to his personality that I'd never seen before. Always wanted to know where I was going, who I was going to be with. Making comments about what was appropriate behavior for a woman like me." Her voice hardened slightly. "Always treating me as if I were too weak to do anything important, too _delicate _to be of consequence."

"Hnnnn," he said, staring off and thinking. His eyes flicked to her again, behind the sunglasses. "Delicate, yes," he mused. "But not fragile..."

"No," she agreed, smiling at him. "Just don't treat me like glass. I won't break."

"You haven't yet," he murmured, drawing the back of his hand along her cheek. Then he blinked and sat back, pushing the shades further up on his nose. "Where do we go from here?" he asked, though whether he meant right now or their future was a little unclear.

She found her glasses on the dashboard and put them on, blinking as the world came into focus. "Do you mean where we're going right now? Or where we're going, as in our future?" she asked seriously, turning to look at him.

"The future can be planned later," he said contemplatively, still looking at her. "And it will be. I meant now."

"East," she said simply. "We're just a few miles south of the TransCanada Highway, which runs coast to coast. We'll be there in about a week, I think."

"Hnnnn," Octavius said, gazing thoughtfully out the window. "Not the route I would have taken, but it will probably throw them off the trail a little more." He settled in. "All right, then," he nodded. "Let's go."

* * *

That evening found them at a gas station in a small mountain town. Clair turned off the engine and put her head down on the wheel for a moment, sighing wearily. "You get to pump the gas. I'm going in to get food."

He raised an eyebrow at this, but left the vehicle and approached the gas pump, only to be confounded by its esoteric protocols. "Hnnn," he said, puzzling over it. "Credit card... no credit card," he mumbled, pressing buttons. A few beeps and a clunk later, the nozzle sat poked into the gas tank and he leaned nonchalantly against the vehicle. A family with a gaggle of small children walked by and the children stared openly at him. He glared icily back and they squeaked, scurrying to the other side of their mother for protection, peeking out at him from behind her and each other as they made their way to a large van. He shook his head and looked up to see Clair exiting the station with a huge armful of food.

Clair looked at the kids, who were shooting anxious glances back at Otto while their mom loaded them into the van. "That's a useful skill. I paid for 30 worth of gas, which will bring us pretty close to a full tank." She opened the back door, putting the bags of chips and bottles of juice where she'd be able to reach them from the driver's seat.

He looked past her and decided suddenly that he was hungry. Though for her or the food, it was difficult to discern. Nevertheless, she was in range and standing still, presenting the perfect target as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, teeth nibbling lightly at her neck. "Nnnn," he mumbled against her neck. "I just realized how hungry I am..."

Clair twisted out of his arms, laughing, and tossed him a bag of oreos. "It'll take us a month to get there if we stop every time we get ... hungry."

He blinked momentarily at her, watching her climb into the driver's seat, then re-entered the vehicle itself, tearing open the bag and stuffing a cookie in his mouth. "It'f your fault," he muttered around the mouthful.

"Mine?" she asked in mock indignation, buckling her seatbelt and starting the engine. "Hardly." She shot him an appreciative sideways glance as she pulled out of the station and back onto the highway. "Not completely, at any rate."

"Oh?" he asked, a smirk on his face. "May I remind you, you are the one who made the first contact and started everything in motion."

She smiled, remembering. "Ah. Right. I did, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," he rumbled, obviously thinking back on it. His eyes flicked up to hers. "No turning back, now," he said.

She reached out for his hand, wrapping hers around it. "No."

"You realize this... good," he said quietly, contemplatively, his fingers curling around hers, thumb rubbing against her knuckles. There was a hint of something dangerous to his voice.

She looked over at him. "What's on your mind?"

"A great many things," he said quietly, releasing her hand so that she might drive with it. "One would think we've just changed our lives completely by doing this."

"It's not the first time I've changed my life because of you," she said easily, headlights reflecting off her glasses. "This is a better change."

"Is it?" he asked. "You were safe there, you know. Much more chance that you'd live out your days in peace. The life you're rushing into like this will not be pretty. It will not be easy. And it may be short."

"But it will be _my _life," she said. "Not a file in an office and a fake name."

He looked sideways at her. "You wish to live your life as you see fit," he said, eyes off in the distance. "Free of the ordinary expectations of the world."

She nodded. "Free of all of it. I know that I could do so much more if I were just free from the _rules_."

"Heh," he said, dropping his head, a rueful expression crossing his features. He reached down and plucked a water bottle from the pile of drinks, opening it and taking a long pull. "They stand in your way, don't they?"

"Some," she admitted ruefully. "Not as much as they were meant to, obviously, but I made concessions to them."

"Hnnn," he growled softly. "A mistake, I've discovered. Make _concessions _and the next thing you know, they change everything and leave you vulnerable." His brows met, scowling darkly over the rims of his shades.

"I'll remember that," she said, nodding once.

He said nothing, staring out the window darkly, and took another pull of water.

* * *

The snow sped by greyly, punctuated by rows of pine and cedar trees and the occasional house. This stretch of highway seemed interminable, and Octavius suddenly found himself wishing he had something to read. The CD collection had provided a little entertainment, but the same CDs over and over will bore even the most single-minded of individuals. He looked out the window, vaguely glad that it wasn't sunny. The snow would have proven painfully blinding, as it had on a few occasions, causing him to lurk in the backseat where the windows were darker. Now, however, he sat in the front passenger seat, the thing pushed all the way back and his feet on the dashboard. He looked sideways at Clair, seeing her nearly nod off before wearily looking up again. "I don't think falling asleep would be advisable, here," he said.

"I'm trying," she sighed. "Driving all day gets a little exhausting." She shook her head to clear it, sitting up straighter. "I'll be fine. I just need something to drink." She fished a bottle of Sobe out of the bag behind her seat with one hand, then struggled with the cap. "Maybe we'll stop somewhere soon, and I can take a break."

He nodded. "A rest would probably do you good," he mused, returning his attention to the scenery. The very next exit advertised a rest stop and he raised his eyebrows. "That was quick."

She took the exit and pulled into the rest stop, then looked at him, still lounging with his feet on the dash. "That's it. You're learning how to drive so you can take a turn."

He stopped, the water bottle still in his mouth. "I'm what?" he said around the opened cap, his eyes tracking toward her.

She unbuckled her seat belt, getting out. "You're going to learn how to drive. It's not hard, and I want a turn to sit back."

He eyed the steering wheel and controls. Then his eyes flicked to her. Back to the controls. Back to her.

"You don't want to?" she asked innocently. "If I have to drive all day, I'm going to be comatose tonight."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Your negotiating tactics leave something to be desired, but ..." he growled. "Curse you." He left the vehicle and walked round to the driver's side. "Curse you," he said again, standing over her.

"Me?" she asked, looking up at him, still innocent. The only other sound in the deserted parking lot was the traffic on the other side of the trees.

"Yes. Curse you," he growled softly. He leaned over her, his lips moving over her good ear and her neck. "This is unconscionable, you know, that someone should have such leverage over me," he murmured against her neck.

"Only fair," she said, nipping his ear lightly. "After all, I am completely at your mercy." She sighed melodramatically, and smirked.

He smirked as well, against her neck. "Oh, yes." He pulled away and opened the driver's side door, reaching in to push the seat back, and climbed in, seating himself and looking down at the gauges.

Smiling triumphantly, she ran around to the passenger side and stretched out. "Alright. The pedal on the left is your gas, and brake on your right. This lever here will put it in gear. Put your foot on the brake and pull that down so the little orange arrow is on D for Drive."

He frowned at the gearshift and complied. The whole vehicle lurched forward as he slammed his foot on the brake. He let it up, slowly, and they inched forward. Lurch, lurch, inch, inch, and his face wore the kind of intent expression usually reserved for incredibly delicate bomb construction.

"A smoother touch," she said helpfully, holding onto the dashboard. "If you brace your heel against the floor and just use your toe, it's sometimes easier."

He flicked a glance at her before easing his foot down to the floor. Their lurching smoothed out. A little. He frowned. "It should not be this difficult," he growled.

"It's harder than it looks, at first," Clair answered. "Try and smooth this out, and remember to turn before you hit the end of the parking lot."

He raised his eyebrows, his eyes glued on the view ahead of him. "Thanks for reminding me," he growled. They lurched to a stop again as he pulled the wheel to the left, then continued lurching forward, angling to the side. His face twisted in concentration. _Grrrrrrr..._

"Relax," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "It's easier if you're relaxed."

He took a huge breath and let it out, foot easing up off the brake. The vehicle eased forward and rolled slowly along. He watched the parking lot like a hawk for the out lane.

"Alright, great." She nodded. "Now, try the gas pedal, slowly."

He narrowed his eyes, looking at her sidelong. "I think I understand this by now," he growled, and pushed down on the gas pedal, but his foot slipped, and he jammed it down out of reflex, and they shot forward.

The SUV bounced over the low curb at the edge of the parking lot into a snow bank a few feet deep and stopped. Clair closed her eyes, working very hard to hide the smile that would not have helped matters. "That's okay," she said when she could control her face again. "With your foot on the brake, move the gearshift to Reverse, and back us out of here."

He bared his teeth, fingers tightening on the steering wheel, and growled. He put the thing in reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The tyres spun. And spun. And ... spun. With an ear-rending squealing sound, they continued to spin.

"Stop," she said immediately. "Now, try giving it gas again, slowly. And turn the wheel just a little to get some traction."

He stopped. Eased down on the gas pedal. Turned the wheel. The SUV rolled backward out of the snowbank. "Now that's more like it," he growled, and pressed down on the gas. The thing swung to the side, tyres squealing, and smacked trunk-first into a second snowdrift, snow poufing around them and rolling down the windscreen. Octavius went very, very still.

Clair pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle laughter, her eyes dancing. It took a minute before she trusted herself to speak. "Do you want to try again?"

"Snow is something that is grey and wet and sticky," Octavius growled, putting the thing in drive again. He turned on the windshield wipers, which scraped away the snow on the windscreen. The moment they swung down again, more snow rolled onto it. "Not this ... stuff. It's something that forms a fine, dingy film on the roads that's quickly scraped off the next morning. Not this powder of crystallized frozen hell." He pushed down on the gas again, and they left the snowbank, hit an ice patch, and skidded sideways all the way across the parking lot to land in a third drift, the impact of which dumped snow on them in a huge clump from a nearby tree.

Clair couldn't help it. She laughed aloud and hard, closing her eyes and curling forward. "I'm sorry," she said, still laughing. "Snow isn't the best environment for learning how to drive."

"Why are you telling me this NOW!" Octavius demanded, fingers curling upward in claws and his face squeezed.

She laughed even harder, throwing her head back against the headrest. "I'm sorry," she chuckled when she could breath again, wiping her eyes. She looked at him, which almost set her off again. "Do you want to keep trying?"

Octavius stared at her, patience written all over his face in big letters in indelibly black biro. Still staring at her, he twisted the steering wheel and pushed down on the gas, easing the vehicle out of the snow, the tyres slipping occasionally. Eyes front again, he scowled in concentration, pushing his lower lip out slightly, and they made their way slowly along the parking lot to the exit.

"Remember," she said as he approached the on-ramp. "Stay relaxed. The biggest danger in driving is over-correcting for things." The freeway was nearly deserted, and clear of all snow.

"At least we won't run afoul of any more snow," Octavius muttered drily as they merged onto the freeway.

"You'll be okay if I get some sleep?" Clair asked, wadding up a sweater and propping it against the door as a pillow. "Think you've got the hang of it?"

"Mmmfh," he said with a nod. "You sleep for a while," he said, glancing to the side at her, seeing her lie against the sweater, and smiled slightly.

She smiled and closed her eyes, burrowing slightly into the soft fabric to get comfortable, and fell asleep quickly.

His attention stayed on the road for a while, but his eyes kept flicking to her, watching her sleep in split-second intervals. The curve of her neck caught his attention, graceful and slender, her hair brushing against it. He noted with a bizarre pang the bandage over her ear. They hadn't taken the severed piece with them. The bizarre urge to protect her from everything spread from his chest, a warm, soft sensation that brought a small smile to his face. He returned his attention to the road again. She was with him, now. She would be safe.

* * *

She woke up when traffic around them picked up, lifting her head and looking around briefly in confusion. "Mmm, how long was I asleep?" she mumbled, scraping her clinging hair back from her face. Outside, it was twilight, the patchy snow glowing blue and red in the last light. They passed a sign saying "Calgary: 22 km."

"Hnn. About four hours," he rumbled quietly.

She sat up and looked out at the city. "How are you doing? Do you want me to drive again?"

"I've gotten used to it," he replied. True, his driving seemed a lot steadier than when he'd started, and he appeared to be a lot more relaxed. He sat back in the driver's seat, hands resting lightly on the wheel, the radio quietly playing some classic rock tune.

"Fast learner," she commented, then sat up straighter as they passed a "Food next right" sign. "Do you want to stop and get something to eat?" Chips and oreos were all well and good, but something of more substance would not be unappreciated.

A smirk. "Of course I am," he said. "And yes, food sounds good." The off-ramp came up and he turned on it, following the small road to a cluster of gas stations and restaurants. "What strikes your fancy?" he asked drily, surveying the fast-food purveyors.

"McDonalds," she choose randomly. They pulled into the parking lot and got out, going into the small restaurant. A cluster of kids and two harassed-looking parents occupied one large booth back by the plastic play set, but otherwise the place was empty of customers.

Octavius gazed about the place, still stretching his legs out and wondering if his spine would decompress. It looked a strangely bleak place, empty of people under fluorescent lights. The latest boy-band tune played quietly over the radio.

Clair ordered a chicken sandwich and an ice tea for herself, then looked at the newspapers stacked on the counter while Otto made his choice. There was, strangely enough, half a copy of the Daily Bugle buried among the copies of the Calgary Herald. She pulled it out, flipped through, and stopped cold. Two pages in was an image of her, probably taken from her driver's licence, next to a shot of Otto smashing a police car over the small headline "Doc Ock kidnaps Seattle Surgeon."

Octavius leaned on the counter, waiting for his order, and looked sidelong at her. He noticed Clair's expression as she looked at the paper, and walked over to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder. "Hnn," he said after a moment, "Not the best picture in the world. I've seen better."

The article was brief and luridly sensational, saying that Ock had "violently mutilated his captive in front of horrified police before fleeing the scene." Keeping her voice down, Clair growled slightly. "I see the Bugle still likes to make up its own version of the facts."

"I don't think they'll ever stop until the happy day that Jameson dies," Octavius remarked drily. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's really nothing to worry about."

She looked over her shoulder at the gawky high school kid manning the counter. "What if someone recognizes us?" She gestured at the bandage over her ear. "The article even mentions this in my description."

"How many people do you think actually read these things and internalize the details to such an extent that they'd recognize you?" he asked, one hand almost unconsciously playing with her hair.

"All it would take is one," she worried. Their food came up and she claimed it from the counter, finding a booth near the back of the McDonalds.

"Yet, statistically, the chances of meeting that one are pretty slim," he said, seating himself opposite her. He picked up a burger, unwrapped it, took a large bite and chewed contemplatively, watching her.

She picked at her chicken sandwich. "I'm suffering a bout of paranoia," she admitted at last, self-deprecatingly. "I'm new to this, remember. I've got this image in my head of your basic movie standoff, surrounded by a sea of cop cars. Also, if they even suspect that we're in Canada, it's going to be a lot harder to get back across the border."

A flicker of a smile. "I've only seen such a situation once... maybe twice." He grew serious. "You may be right, though, it may make re-crossing the border difficult. Right now, you're more recognizable than I am. They haven't any photographs of me as I am now. He took another bite and appeared to think on it.

She took a long sip of her tea. "Our biggest advantage right now is that they have absolutely no idea where we are."


	8. Adaptation

**Unreasonable Addiction**

**Chapter 8: Adaptation**

By Yumegari and LRH, ed. Skylanth.

"We have absolutely no idea where they are."

Hanover tossed a printout onto the desk in disgust. All around him lay more of such printouts, along with newspaper clippings detailing the hostage situation. A computer monitor on his desk glowed, blue-white, showing a map of New York state, a small group of red dots glowing in a few points in and around the city. He glowered at the computer and then at the phone and then at the agent who walked in. "Tell me you have some news. Any news at all?"

Agent Johnson shook his head, handing him a file. "No one's seen them or the car since they left Seattle. Actually, we don't even know that they have left Seattle. I still think they're in the city, sir."

"We've gone through this city with a fine-tooth comb, Johnson," he replied. "If they were still here, we would have found them. Holmes is too recognizable right now." He blew a sigh, running a hand over his head and ruffling the ginger-ish hair. "No, I have a suspicion they've fled. Octavius'll want to go back to New York, that's for certain. The question is, how are they getting there?"

"We had road-blocks up on every east-bound route within the hour," Johnson pointed out. "If he did get out, he got out fast."

Hanover paced, his hands behind his back. "It would have taken too long to get out of the city the way they were driving all up and down, trying to lose us. They would have hit the blocks on any eastbound route..." he stopped, looking at Johnson. "Unless... they didn't go east."

Johnson thought about it. "It's possible. Just the fact that he came here in the first place puts him entirely out of his usual pattern."

Hanover scowled. "Exactly. He's banking on exploiting that unpredictability." He frowned. "We need to widen the search. Airports, train stations. We need to get a hold of border patrol as well, he may have fled north."

"How could he cross the border without attracting attention?" Johnson asked. "He's got an unwilling hostage, and he's not exactly anonymous himself."

"Probably the same way he got the flight to get here in the first place," Hanover grumbled. "Fake ID, probably. Those arms are his most recognizable feature, the goggles, too. Without 'em, he's just another big lump in a longcoat amid thousands."

"Did we find the flight he took in yet?" Johnson asked. "Airport security might have a picture we could post to help the search."

"SeaTac sent us security tapes for the last seven days. I've got people working on it right now."

Someone walked up behind Johnson and knocked on the doorframe. "Sir, I think we found him," she said, holding up a tape.

Hanover gestured her in. "Whatcha got?" he asked.

She placed the tape on his desk along with a slip of paper on which had been written a date and a flight number. "This is a tape from SeaTac's security system that has him disembarking flight 1066 out of LaGuardia. A check of the passenger manifest brought up two people who could possibly match his description. A Mark Taylor and a ..." she squinted at the printout. "Oliver Ostzynski. What the hell kind of name is 'Oliver Ostzynski?'"

"A fake one," Hanover replied. "We got a name for the APB now. Update the NYPD and the search parties."

Johnson nodded and copied the note. "I'll have it all over the country in five minutes. One step closer, sir."

Hanover dropped himself into his chair as they left on their errands and turned slowly to face the window, light glinting off his glasses. "Yes. One step closer. I'll have you yet, you bastard."

* * *

A sign passed by, reading _Regina, 15 km_. Octavius made a frustrated Mmmmh sound and rubbed his eyes. "Blasted sun," he growled, returning his hand to the wheel. "I think we'd best stop for a short while." 

Clair looked up from her book, marking her page with her thumb. "I can drive, if you want to go in the back seat for a while."

A smirk crossed his features as he pulled onto an off-ramp to a rest area. "The back seat does sound like a good idea," he said with a flicker of his eyebrows. After pulling into the parking lot of the rest area and getting the SUV more or less between the lines of a parking space, he turned of the engine and sighed, rubbing his eyes again. He opened the driver's side door and climbed out, shutting it and opening the door behind it. He leaned against the side of the vehicle and took a deep breath, looking about. No-one was about, really. Just a few people so far away as to be easily disregarded.

She marked her page with a napkin from the glove compartment and got out, coming around to the driver's side. She looked at Otto, leaning there. "Are you going to get in?"

"Eventually," he said, slipping an arm around her and leaning in, his lips grazing her neck. "And I think I'll take you with me," he murmured against her skin, licking the underside of her earlobe.

"I thought we wanted to get to Manitoba by tonight," she said, not protesting, running her hands up his back, tipping her head to give him better access to her neck.

"We can still get there," he replied, his lips under the corner of her jaw, now, his arms pulling her close against him. One hand came up to twine his fingers in her hair. "There's time."

"Mmmm," she agreed, closing her eyes and turning her head to kiss him softly.

He returned that kiss, slowly, almost lazily, leaning into it. After an eternity, or maybe a moment, he detached and gazed at her for a moment through half-lidded eyes. Then he turned and, seizing her around the waist, lifted her into the backseat of the SUV, following her in.

She pulled him to her, kissing him more passionately, her hands on either side of his head, his hair falling like a curtain around their faces.

He returned the kiss, slowly, unhurriedly, sighing a long, contented sigh, his eyes closed. He felt strangely relaxed; there was no world outside this small place and the two of them.

Clair put her head back down on Otto's chest, listening to his heart beat. It was a comforting sound, and an enduring one. Its steady rhythm was intoxicating her when a sharp "rattattat" at the window brought her head up sharply. A man was silhouetted there, his hand raised.

Almost instantly, Octavius was upright, warily eyeing the man on the other side of the window. He squinted at him. "Who's there?" he growled.

"This is a public place," snapped the man angrily. "You want to mess around like that, find a hotel!"

There was a pause as Octavius blinked, then a growl started in his throat, his fists balling.

His message delivered, the man turned and strode away towards a mini-van parked a distance away. Clair took a deep, slightly unsteady breath and put her hand on Otto's shoulder. "Maybe we should get going again. I can't believe he just looked in here," she said, her face red.

"That's what I'm talking about," he growled. "The unmitigated gall..." he spluttered for a moment.

"Let's just go," she said, crawling into the front seat. "We've still got a long way to go today."

He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair, and looked at her. There would be time later to enjoy that strange, peaceful feeling. He leaned forward, into the passenger seat, and kissed her neck, his eyes closed, savouring that last moment of peace before they would continue on. But as he looked up, the light hit him. "This isn't the only reason I'd stopped," he reminded her, one hand rubbing his eyes behind the shades.

"I know," she said moving into the driver's seat. "I'm going to drive for a while. You stay back there." She started the engine and started to pull out, but the mini-van cut them off before she could get moving. The intrusive man glared at them from the driver's seat as it went past. Clair scowled. "It's almost a shame he doesn't know who you are."

"Oh?" Octavius asked, settling himself in the back seat and closing his eyes.

"Well, he'd be running for his life if he did," she pointed out, following him onto the freeway. Traffic was running smoothly around them. Idly, she stayed behind the minivan, never more than a car away.

He snickered. "Mmmm, true, that, true, that." He opened one eye, looking at the minivan. "There's something to be said for those who drive minivans. It has to be said, because no-one will print it." He closed the eye again, his hands laced over his middle, and looked very content. It was unavoidable, really. The inside of the vehicle was warm and quiet. It was darker in the backseat and he still floated in the afterglow despite the rude interruption.

She tailed the minivan for miles, changing lanes when he did, speeding up or dropping back against the flow of traffic, but when he took a south-bound exit, she didn't follow. Instead, she turned on the radio.

Rather dull seventies' music filled the cabin, doing nothing for Octavius' state of wakefulness. He drifted off and dreamed pointless, shiftless dreams for a tiny while until she felt him gently shaking his knee. He slitted an eye open, seeing they'd exited once again and parked in front of what looked like a bar. "Mmmff?" he said.

"I'm hungry," she said. "It's the first place I passed that looked okay." It was snowing and beginning to get dark as they got out into the slush-coated parking lot, which was mostly occupied by semis, skirting the half-frozen puddles as they went into the bar. It was a dim, smoky place, crowded with noisy men and very few women. The only space was at a table near the bar.

Octavius harrumphed quietly, ducking his head lower into his collar. "Charming," he drawled.

Clair nodded agreement, but claimed the table anyway, placing an order with the bartender for whatever food she was least likely to regret and a cup of coffee. "I think we can go maybe another hundred miles tonight before we need to find a place to stop," she began to say, but then she looked past Octavius' shoulder, to a large tv mounted on the wall. She couldn't hear the broadcaster, but the picture in the corner of the screen was Octavius, in his glasses and trenchcoat, vivid against the sterility of an airport lounge. The picture changed to her, a brief clip of the news report that had led him to her in the first place.

"Hmm?" he said, leaning forward to sit down, and caught her gaze. Turning, he caught the hospital news clip, then turned back to look at her. "What is it?"

"They had a picture of you like this," she whispered, indicating the way he looked now. "It looked like they got it from the airport."

He grew very still. "Perhaps they didn't notice it," he said, sitting, though she could tell his face had lost some of its colour.

Clair looked around the bar as unobtrusively as she could. Most of the people weren't paying attention to the television at all, but a number of people at the counter were staring fixedly at the screen. They were probably the ones near enough to hear it. As she watched, they showed a shot of the border station that they had gone through, and another clip, this one of the sleepy customs agent who had let them through. Some of the watchers straightened up, and one looked around randomly. He looked past them at first, but she could tell the moment his mind made the connection. "Too late for that," she murmured.

Octavius glanced in the direction she was looking, seeing the staring man. He grew still again. "We should leave," he muttered so that only she could hear.

"Right now," she agreed, standing up as casually as she could and beginning to thread her way through the crowded room. The man elbowed his neighbor and pointed, and then stood up.

"That's him," she heard him exclaim. "It's that Doc Ock guy!"

Octavius froze. "What?" he said, only mostly convincingly. "Honestly, what're the odds?" He resumed walking to the door.

More people were looking by now, and Clair kept her face down, but someone grabbed her by the shoulder when she was about ten feet from the door. "You're that doctor, aren't you?" a huge man with a braided beard asked excited. He pulled her roughly away from Otto, pushing her behind him and his buddies.

Octavius stopped and it almost seemed as though sound left the bar entirely. With his health returned, his old presence had returned as well. Actuators or no actuators, even though he was shorter than some of the patrons, he appeared to tower over everyone. "Release her," he growled.

Clair struggled to get back to him, but the patrons had closed ranks between them. She could hardly even see him.

Braid-beard scowled down at Octavius, rolling his hands ostentatiously into fists. "We don't look kindly on monsters like you. Big mistake, coming here un-armed like this." He guffawed at his own pun, raising his fists.

"Oh, please," Octavius replied. "What possesses people like you to wave about your bravado in the face of certain death, and with such puerile attempts at humour to go with it?" He scowled blackly. "You are in my way," he said simply, and backhanded the man with a loud crack.

The crowd around them drew back, leaving them an arena. Wiping blood away from a split-lip, Braid-beard glared and threw a wild, round-house punch. Octavius dodged it easily, but failed to do anything for a split second before hissing in anger._ I'm far too accustomed to fighting with the arms_, he realized, angrily. He stepped behind the other and grabbed him, pivoted, and threw him over his shoulder and against the floor. Winded, Braid-Beard reached out to grab his ankle and yanked on it.

Clair kept trying to push through, but someone grabbed her from behind and picked her up, pulling her back from the fight. "Don't worry, miss," said the bartender kindly. "Ralph and the boys can keep him busy until the police can get here. You're safe now."

The ankle grab nearly upended Octavius, but he shifted his balance, pivoted again, and kicked the other in the kidneys, stepping backward a pace, longcoat still swirling. Ralph groaned explosively, curling in on himself and clutching his stomach for a moment before struggling to his feet and charging, his face red. Hands reached out from the crowd to grab Octavius, hold him there. Ralph's first two punches landed, one bloodying Octavius' nose, the other nearly relieving him of his sunglasses. He thrashed his way free as Ralph's fist slammed into his middle, dodged the fourth punch, and struck the other with a sound backhand, then a left hook. Ralph's head snapped back and he staggered a moment, but he recovered mostly and came at him again, bellowing hoarsely and grabbing Octavius, trying to bear him to the ground. Octavius threw himself to one side as he was grabbed, turning them so that Ralph hit the floor first, and immediately his hands went to the other's neck, gripping it. Ralph's hands gripped Octavius's, trying to pry them away from his throat. He kicked futilely at him, struggling. Octavius tightened his grip, his other hand coming up to grip Ralph's head. With a sudden shift, his lower hand went to the other man's chin and he pulled sharply in opposite directions, snapping his neck.

The crowd had frozen for a moment at the horrible sound as Octavius dropped the body andstood, surveying the room. Ralph's buddies were the first to move again, rushing Octavius as a group, one drawing a gun from under his jacket as he came. Octavius threw the first one, then slammed his shoulder against the one carrying the gun, tearing it from his grasp. He backpedaled, his aim darting about the room. "Give me the girl," he grated, "Or another one of you will die. And another, and another, until she is returned to me!"

The human shield tightened in front of Clair, despite her increasingly vocal protests. She kicked the barkeeper, who was still holding her. "Let me go! Do you want more people to die?"

Octavius cocked the gun and fired. The bullet exploded another man's throat and he fell, already dead. "Must I ask again!" he demanded, selecting another target.

A man who was standing protectively in front of his vastly-pregnant girlfriend reached back and yanked Clair from the bartender's nerveless grip, all but throwing her forward at Octavius. "Take her and get out," he said over the muted protests of the others. "I don't want my girl dying over someone I don't even know." A few men shouted imprecations at him, but no one moved.

Octavius grabbed Clair from behind, his arm around her throat, the gun to her head, and backed out. "Yessss," he hissed. "Protect your own... When it comes down to it, it's what you monkeys are best at!" He kicked the door open and backed out of the building, his grip on Clair still rough, the gun still at her temple.

She twisted in his grip as soon as the door swung shut, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his coat. He could feel her shaking. He pulled her to the SUV, opened the door, and carefully pushed her in. Crossing round to the driver's side, he started the vehicle, peeled out of the parking lot, and sped onto the highway, quickly burying them in the evening traffic before finally easing up on the gas, breathing hard. He looked at her.

She stared out the windshield, her glasses blank ovals of reflected light. Huddled in her seat, she looked even smaller than usual. "I've never seen someone killed before," she said hollowly, not looking at him.

"It's something you'll need to grow accustomed to," he said quietly. "I'd told you that life with me would not be pretty."

She nodded. "I know, I knew it would happen, at some point. I'm just... Give me a little time."

He reached out one hand to stroke it over her hair. "You'll get used to it," he murmured.

After a moment, she leaned into the touch, scooting over in her seat so she could lean against him as he drove. She didn't say anything, but her shaking lessened and stopped eventually. Occasionally, his hand would leave the wheel and rub her hair, warm against her scalp and neck. Lost in thought, she didn't even notice when she fell asleep.

* * *

Eventually Octavius found a small town that boasted a nature preserve, and pulled over there, hiding the SUV among the trees. He looked down at Clair, then carefully shook her awake, leaning down to press his lips against her hair. 

"Mmm?" she said, waking up slowly. She looked up at him. "Where are we?"

"We're in Riding Mountain," he said softly, his hands on either side of her face, warm and steady. "In the forest. I don't think they'll find us here." He kissed her head again. "We need to sleep." He released her and climbed out of the vehicle, climbing back in and stretching out along the backseat, unbuttoning his coat. He gestured with one hand for her to join him. Rubbing her eyes, she climbed back with him, fitting into the narrow space between his body and the back of the seat, her head pillowed on his shoulder. She tipped it up to kiss him once, her eyes half-shut again already.

He curled his arms around her, fingers stroking her hair. "I'll keep you safe," he murmured. He felt her breathing grow slow, felt her fall asleep again. He lay for while, staring into the trees, his fingers twining gently in her hair until he fell asleep himself, and wondered if he'd be able to keep that promise as his eyes slipped shut.

* * *

Johnson ran into Hanover's office. "Pick up your phone," he said, pointing at the object in question just as it began to ring. "It's a Captain Morgan of the Canadian Police, from a little town called Lort, in Saskatchewan. They've got a positive on Ock, less than three hours ago. Killed two guys in a bar, then disappeared." 

Coffee nearly splurted onto the computer monitor that Hanover had been staring at. He swallowed laboriously and looked up at Johnson, then grabbed the phone, hitting the blinking line button. "Hanover," he said.

"Agent Hanover?" said an older voice from the other end. "I'm Captain Morgan, Lort Police. We've got two dead bodies here, and it's your guy. Thirty-odd witnesses saw him."

Hanover stood, crossing to a map and picking up a red thumbtack. "Lort, Saskatchewan," he muttered. "When was he there?"

"Two and a half hours ago. He broke one man's neck, shot another, and split. By all accounts, it looks like it wouldn't have happened if a patron hadn't recognized him and called him out."

"Guess it goes to show there are idiots everywhere," Hanover muttered, pushing the pin into the map. "If some moron thinks he can take on Doctor Octopus even if he is unarmed..." He eyed the map. "Lort. That's just off the TransCan, isn't it?" He returned to his desk. "We need co-operation on this search. I'll need that whole highway combed up and down. Put up roadblocks if you have to, checkpoints! This is the closest we'll get to catching that bastard!"

"We're already on it, Agent," said Morgan firmly. "We've got roadblocks set up at the province border, and in a perimeter around Lort. If we were fast enough off the mark, we'll have him."

"Let me know when you catch him, Captain," Hanover said, and hung up. He grinned at the map and its location point.

* * *

Clair woke up in the soft light of early morning, with a cold winter sunlight filtering through the trees into the car. She lay still for a while, getting her bearings, and watching Otto sleep. One of his hands lay on his chest, and she watched it, thinking. That hand had killed someone last night. And then it had run through her hair, comforting her. And the latter meant more to her than the former. She would get used to it, he had said. 

She sat up, looking out of the car at the woods surrounding them. Finding her shoes and kissing Otto without waking him, she slipped quietly out of the car. They were parked at a trail head in an old-growth forest, open and airy beneath huge conifers. She went just a little way down the trail, out of sight of the car, and sat on a flat-toped stump, staring down the valley sightlessly, her mind occupied by the sudden shift in her priorities.

* * *

Octavius felt a little colder upon waking up, and forced his eyes open, noticing that Clair wasn't there. He sat up, looking about. Maybe she was outside the vehiclebut she wasn't any where to be seen. His blood ran cold for just an instant. Had she wandered off and gotten "rescued?" He scrambled off the seat and out the door. She wasn't behind the trees. He stopped, his breath fast. Stop, he told himself. Think. There are a lot of trees here. He walked around the vehicle, the circuit widening, his eyes scanning the trees. 

There. He saw her, the grey-blue sweater she wore standing out against the greens and browns of the forest. She sat on a stump, staring out into the distance over the valley. He sighed forcefully.

Moving silently, he walked up behind her. His hand came down on her shoulder and he turned her round to face him.

She jumped a little, startled. The smile that appeared on her face didn't quite reach her eyes. "Oh. Good morning. Did you sleep well? My neck can't take much more of sleeping in the back seat. But we're more than halfway there, so it won't have to."

"Why did you just wander off!" he demanded, hands gripping her shoulders, now. "You could have been seen and that could have led them back to me! Any manner of things could have happened!"

She pulled back against his grip, staring at him, the smile gone. "There's no one here to see me!"

"You don't _know _that! You can't know that!" He gripped harder. "You've got to be more careful! This isn't a vacation, _we are on the run_! This is a dangerous thing we're doing, and if you wander off like this, I cannot keep my promise to protect you!"

She froze, a number of emotions warring in her face. He could feel the bones of her arms under his hands, fragile and light. "I don't need protecting," she said carefully. "I'm not a child, Otto."

He glowered down at her, his breath loud in his nose. After a moment, his hands released her shoulders. "No, you're not a child. But ... you're ... precious to me..." He looked away.

A warm feeling grew in her chest at his words, and she bent her head, studying her hands. "Then... I'll be more careful in the future." She looked up at him, reaching out and taking one of his hands.

He looked at her when she took his hand. There was a pause, and he pulled her fiercely into his arms, holding her tightly enough to squeeze some of the breath from her, his face buried against her hair. She could feel him shaking slightly. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere," she murmured. "But I can't stay in sight all the time."

"Only until we're somewhere safer," he told her softly. "Only until I have my bearings. Until I have my footing and then... then I can stop watching so closely." His fingers twined in her hair.

"Alright," she said, smiling. She pulled back slightly to look at him, her fingers interlaced behind his waist. "You be careful too, okay?"

He looked down at her, his expression unreadable.

"When you can," she conceded.

He slipped his fingers through her hair. "I have a reason to, now," he murmured. "So... I think I will."

* * *

They got off the TransCan at Toronto, heading south along the coast of Lake Ontario. Clair was planning aloud. "So, they obviously know we're in Canada know. And they probably still know that we're aiming to get back to New York, so they'll be watching the borders. Especially the borders on our projected route, like Niagra. We might have better luck making the crossing near Detroit, even though it means a long detour." 

"How long?" he asked, looking up from a road map they'd acquired along the way.

"Eeh," she said, doing the math. "Another day."

"The route gets more complicated and brings us through more heavily-populated areas," he said, finger tracing different routes from Michigan to New York.

"If we don't make any more stops other than what we need, it should be alright," she pointed out. "If we take turns and drive non-stop, we'll be in New York in two days." She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Maybe we should get rid of this car, find another one."

"It would probably be for the best," Octavius replied, giving up on the map. He looked back at the books and the containers and the cat. "We'll have to transfer these things."

She watched the road, squinting through the rain that lashed the windshield. "Should we do that on this side of the border, or that side?"

"We'll want to steal it on the other side," Octavius replied, gazing out the window. "We can find a parking lot that isn't close to a building and see what we can find there."

"I think I still have enough cash for gas the rest of the way there," she said, counting in her head. She was distracted by misgivings, even though she knew it was too late, far too late at this point to give into them.

"You look distracted," Octavius observed, looking at her sidelong. "What are you thinking?"

She glanced at him, her face blank. "I'm just thinking about things. Priorities, things like that. My conscience is giving me some trouble."

He almost smirked at that, but instead watched her closely. "What is it telling you?" he asked, after a moment.

"That two men are dead," she said softly. "Last week, I was a doctor. I saved people's lives. That's what I did, that's why I was there. '_I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm_.' It was the core of my life. And it's been completely replaced."

"Are you having second thoughts?" he asked, an edge to his voice, now.

"It's too late for that, isn't it?" She laughed, a little bitterly. "No, I've chosen this. I've chosen _you_. I'm already forsworn. But it leaves me wondering, who am I now?"

"Is that regret I hear in your tone?" he asked, his voice growing harder. "Did you honestly think you could start on this path and then leave it any time you felt misgivings?"

"I didn't say I was changing my mind, did I?" she answered. "I'm just trying to get used to it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, I knew what this would mean going in. I know what you do." Her hands clenched on the steering while. "I've felt your hands around my throat, and I know that I could be just as dead as that guy in the bar. That's not the problem. I was a doctor, dammit. No two ways about it. My name was _Dr. _Clair Holmes. No, Dr. Clair _Watson_! And I've willfully betrayed what that means, left it behind. And I feel like I left most of myself behind with it." One hand crept to her chest, a loose fist pressed against her breastbone. "And I don't know who I am now."

"You don't know what it is to lose an identity until you've had it forcefully taken!" He shouted in reply. "You went into this willingly, you begged me to take you with me! The past cannot figure into it now! None of us know who we are!"

"I did!" she shouted back. Her driving got a little jerky, and she brought it back under control. "I knew _exactly _who I was! And then you showed up again, and suddenly none of that mattered anymore! I'm trying to figure out what's left of me, and all I can find is you!"

"Don't blame me for your sudden identity crisis!" he spat. "All you have, now, is me, and you'd best get used to that, as well!"

She glared at him. "And what? Just live as your pet for the rest of my life? Define myself by you?"

"Yes!" he hissed. "You are _mine_, now!"

She grew very still. With rigid, controlled movements, she pulled the car over to the shoulder, put it in park, and continued looking straight ahead. "Get out, Otto."

"It isn't that easy," he replied, "To be rid of me."

She brought up a hand to rub the bridge of her nose, and her voice was cold. "Get out now. I cannot live as some man's pet, even yours."

"Your feminism is charming," he replied, equally as coldly, "However, you should have considered that I was not simply going to be some attentive lover out of a romance-novel fantasy who would come to _take you away from all of this_. Association with me comes at a _price_. I do not brook rebelliousness." He leaned closer. "And I do not take orders. You will not be rid of me until I decide you will be rid of me."

"Fine," she said shortly, and opened the driver's side door and got out herself, and started walking down the road the way they had come. There was a town they had passed, maybe two miles back.

He would leave without her. He had a vehicle, a means of returning to his base of operations in New York. He even had all of the notes and materials needed to create and administer himself more of the neural restorative serum. He didn't need her at all. She would have simply gotten in the way. He didn't need her. He slid into the driver's seat, fuming, and reached out to turn the key in the ignition again. "I don't need her," he growled to himself. He adjusted the rearview and caught her reflection as she walked away.

He did need her.

Damnit, he didn't know what he would do without simply having her there. Her voice, her presence, her scent. Something had been made whole with her around that was now incomplete again. He couldn't let her leave him. Not now. Not ever. He needed her.

He burst out of the vehicle, leaving the door open, and ran after her, longcoat flapping, feet crunching against the gravel on the side of the road.

She looked over his shoulder at the sound, and took off running, sprinting down the gravel shoulder. The rain lashed down, and she was already soaked, but she barely felt it.

His legs were longer and he closed the distance between them, grabbing hold of her, his momentum pivoting them both around. His arms were wrapped around her torso and he lifted her, obviously intending to carry her back to the car.

"No!" she screamed, kicking at him and struggling to break free. "I will not be kept!"

His grip was tight, very tight, but he struggled to drag her back and eventually her kicking caused him to overbalance. They fell and he rolled on top of her, grabbing her wrists. Only now that she was facing him did she see the desperation written on his face, between the soaked strands of midnight hair that fell about his head and shoulders in strings.

"What's it to be, Otto?" she snarled, still furious. "Am I the idiot here? Have I really been your prisoner all along and no one told me?"

His grip tightened momentarily on her wrists. His breath came in loud, heavy gasps, his chest heaving so hard that he shifted slightly with each breath. He glared down at her. "No," he grated after a moment. "You're not a prisoner. But I can't let you leave!"

She pulled futilely at her trapped hands as the gravel dug into her back. "Why not?"

"Because I need you!" he suddenly howled over a crack of thunder. "Because when _I_ look, all I find is _you_! You've made your way so thoroughly into my life that I cannot imagine it without you!"

She stopped pulling, looking up at him. Framed against the dark grey sky, his face was a study in black and white. "Let me up," she said at last, softly.

"You'll run," he panted.

"No," she said earnestly, her own breath still coming hard.

Slowly, he released her hands, sitting back on his feet, his head turned away.

She sat up, rubbing her wrists. "I need you too," she said slowly, as if only just truly realizing what this meant. She looked at him. "I need you too. And maybe, that's enough for both of us."

He looked at her again, still breathing hard, the rain rolling down his face and plastering his hair to his head. He blinked as the water rolled over his eyes and noticed that she was shivering, her sweater a more or less useless, soaked lump around her. He stood, peeled off his longcoat, and draped it over her.

She pulled it tight around her shoulders and climbed to her feet, then, wordlessly, wrapped her arms around him.

Again, he noticed acutely how small and delicate she was. Running warm fingers over her hair, he curled an arm around her and started walking, leading her back to the car, which still stood running, its driver's side door still open. He led her to the passenger side, opened the door, and bundled her in, carefully, his eyes not even tracking to her face.

"Thank you," she said quietly before he could close her door, looking up at his face. "You kept me from doing something very stupid."

There was a long pause in which he finally looked at her, After a moment, though, he said, only, "Oh?" hands pointlessly busying themselves; pulling his longcoat more snugly around her, smoothing its folds, adjusting her seatbelt.

"Leaving," she said, watching his hands, her expression mild. "I would have let my pride get in the way of something much more.. more. More important."

A rueful smile flickered briefly across his features, and he seemed to focus on her hands. "You aren't the only one," he murmured quietly, almost inaudibly, resting his head against hers.

She sniffed, smiling. "Sorry for being an idiot. Now we're both soaked."

A hand cupped her face and he kissed her head, lips pressing briefly against her hairline. "I've been through worse," he said, "And you'll dry soon enough."

She nodded. "We should get going. We've still got a long way to go."

"Hnnn," he replied, and withdrew, shutting the door and crossing round to the driver's side. He climbed in and shut the door and instantly it felt warmer in there. Once they were on the road again, he turned up the heater. It grew comfortably silent, no sound but the rain, the squeak of the windshield wipers, and the quiet whoosh of the heater.

Sleep was tempting, but instead she curled up in her seat, watching him drive. The coat was huge around her, a great sea of black, and she could still feel his heat in it. "Tell me about what you do," she asked.

He blinked, glanced at her, and another smile flickered briefly across his features. "That's a rather broad question," he replied. "What do you want to know?"

"All I really know about your past is what I've read in the newspapers." She glanced down. "After the first time, I searched for everything I could, but it's all the Bugle, and you know how reliable that is. Tell me something, anything about your life."

"Hnnn..." he rumbled, thinking. "I'm not often asked to tell the story of any part of my life..." He trailed off, still thinking.

She rested her head on her hand, her elbow braced on her knee. "Tell me about the mess with Brigham Fontaine. The papers were incredibly vague about that."

"Nnnnh," he growled softly. "Fontaine. It was a while ago." He thought on it for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, contemplative. "Brigham Fontaine had boasted of developing a security system that was, in his words, 'Doctor Octopus-proof.' As you can probably surmise, I wasn't going to take a challenge like that lying down. I don't recall what I did with his security system, probably something that disputed the veracity of his claim, and I had him in my custody for a short while, until he was rescued by the arachnid. Later, however, the boy managed to find me, I still don't know how. He tried to form a partnership with me, probably as a way to advance the development of his own projects. Many things were ... procured, a great deal of money, that sort of thing. He tried to figure out a way to further integrate my consciousness with the actuators, but it didn't work very well as I recall. He'd built his own sort of device that apparently granted him some kind of control over electricity, a useful thing in this sort of business. It was that device that nearly killed him. Had Spider-man not convinced me, in a moment of indecision, to halt Fontaine's project, any manner of things may have happened to the boy. But he'd stopped breathing." A pause, and his voice grew even quieter. "I'd resuscitated him. And yet when the boy awoke, he attributed his continued life to _Spider-man_, painting me as nothing more than his kidnapper. And that damned arachnid never stepped forward to refute that claim..." He growled in his throat, hands gripping the steering wheel.

She laid her hand over one of his. "That's awful. Credit should always be given where it's due."

He sighed. "You'll find, in a world such as mine, that that's rarely the case," he said, softly.

She sat back in her seat. "It's kind of surprising that Spider-Man would let them say something untrue like that. He's supposed to be the hero, isn't he?" There was a trace of scorn in the word. "Unimpeachable, a good role model and all that. Easily confused, though," she mused.

"Hah..." Octavius laughed. "Hehhhh ha hah a role model... I suppose, in a truly black and white sense, you could say that. He fights people like me, after all. But not much beyond that..."

"You tried to get him to expose his identity, right?" she asked. She'd been deep in the research of the ZJ at that point, and largely insensible of the outside world, but some news had managed to seep into the lab from time to time. "Something about a foreign diplomat...?"

"Heh," he said. "Yes, I'd tried to employ the Foreign Minister from Palestine as a bargaining chip. That was spoilt rather impertinently by Spider-man and some ... slob he'd run up onto a lammpost with a camera. I still have no idea how he did it, but the plan was foiled nonetheless. I recall having been furious at that time. Spider-man was... is ... my greatest obstruction. If I'm rid of him, things will run so much more smoothly. This was simply another attempt to rid myself of him since I obviously can't kill him. But all I can remember of that time is anger. Desire for revenge in whatever form."

"I've felt some of that," she said, drawing in on herself slightly. "When they took the research away from me. I wanted revenge on whoever convinced the police that I wasn't safe where I was. Because, you know, the research was more important than my safety, even if I didn't believe that you wouldn't go back on your word not to hurt me."

"Hnn," he said. "You can still have your revenge. If you want it," this last he said with a slight smile. "I'm sure I can locate Osborn easily enough."

She smiled wolfishly, a new expression for her. "It is tempting."

"You're learning quickly," he said, raising his eyebrows at that smile.

"Adaptation," she said glibly. "When I'm not being an idiot, I am smart enough to adapt to new conditions. Wouldn't be much of a scientist if I couldn't, would I?"

He laughed outright at that. "Well-put!"

"Thank you." She sniffled again, and dug a tissue out of the glove box to wipe her nose. "I owe Osborn a great deal of frustration."

"We both do," Octavius mused, nodding. "We both do."

She unbuckled her seatbelt and slipped into the backseat, reaching over for her notebooks. "He wanted to sabotage my research. I'll complete it. How hard would it be to... procure the needed supplies? Biological chemicals, viral forms, and the like."

Octavius smirked. "Not hard at all, if you know where to look."

"I should have written this all down immediately," she said, sprawling across the back seat with the notebook open across her knees, chewing on the end of her pen. "Did I use the rice or the kelp protein to seal the acid-complex?" she asked, her eyes unfocused. But she remembered before he could answer, bending back over the page and taking more notes. "Unacceptable effects," she murmured aloud, sketching an illustration of the modified viral cells. "Sensory overstimulation, delirium, disorientation. What else?" She glanced up, looking at him through the rear-view mirror, and then sneezed violently. "Excuse me."

"Seizures," he supplied, handing a tissue back to her.

"Thank you," she said, taking it. She stared up at the ceiling, tapping the pen against her lip, then she shook her head. "It's no good. I'll need a proper lab to go any farther. And test subjects." She chewed her lip. "Maybe I can find volunteers, under the table, so to speak."

"Volunteers?" Octavius echoed, chuckling.

"If I can find them," she qualified. "But if I can't, the science is the important thing, isn't it?"

"Oh, I"m sure I can find you some volunteers," Octavius replied vaguely.

"I'd rather not know where you... find them," she said. Absently, she peeled off the bandage over her ear and wadded it up, stuffing it in a litter bag. "It'll be a while yet before I'm that far again, I think."

"Fair enough," Octavius replied. "I didn't think you would want to know, honestly." He looked back at her through the rear-view mirror and stopped. "Your eyes are all red. Are you all right?"

She wiped her nose again. "Just chilled. Shouldn't have gone out and gotten myself soaked. Could you turn up the heat?"

He looked at the heater. "Hnn. All right," he said, adjusting the controls. "It's at maximum, now, though." He peered through the rearview again. "Are you still wet, maybe?"

"Yeah," she said, plucking at her sweater. "I'll change." Setting her notebook aside, she stripped off her sweater and the equally-wet t-shirt under it, pulling on the other sweater that she'd brought, but she didn't pick up the notebook again after. Instead, she crawled back into the front seat and curled up again in Otto's coat, putting her hands over the heater vent.

The slushy scenery continued to speed by. After a small while of this, he unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his eyes. "Mmhhh," he said. "How close to the border are we, now?" he asked, peering at the rainy scenery before them.

"Hmm," she said, considering. "Four hours, maybe? We just keep following this freeway, it'll take us straight there." She looked at him. "Are you getting tired?"

"Hmm? No," he shook his head. "Don't worry about me. You need to recover. You'll need your wits about you."

"I'm fine," she insisted. "I don't have a plan for getting past this border, though. They'll be watching for us, now."

"Hnnn," he said, thinking. "Are there any small, less-noticeable roads we can take?"

"Not across the border. There are just the three crossings; Niagra, Detroit, and Port St. Huron," she said, checking the map. "Maybe a distraction... No, wait." She tapped the map, where a tiny road curled alongside the border through one of the green shapes that indicated a wilderness area. "We're going to leave the car anyway, right? If we leave it on this side of the border, we can climb the fence here and walk to this town, here." She indicated a small town on the US side of the border, maybe three miles in. "There will be a car there that we can borrow."

"Mmm," he said, nodding. "It sounds like a sound plan." He rubbed his neck, then returned his hand to the wheel, peering intently out the windscreen.

She twisted to look into the back seat. "I can leave most of this behind," she said reluctantly of the stacks of books. "I just need to take the notebooks, the serum and its modified version, and Frank." The cat in question lifted his head from where he'd been sleeping under the back seat, acknowledging her with a sleepy _brrt_. "I need a backpack." She coughed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Excuse me. Maybe we can find one at a gas station or something."

"Probably a good idea," he replied a little vaguely. "We can always procure more than one. We could carry more that way."

She wrapped herself up more tightly in the coat, cold despite the heater's blasting. "You sure the heater's all the way up?"

"Yes," he replied with a slight sigh. "It's all the way up..." He blinked slowly and shifted in the driver's seat, trying to push his feet out a little further.

"You okay?" she said, looking at him. "You look like you're about to fall asleep."

"Hn? No, I told you, I'm fine," he said, rubbing his face. He yawned, and almost seemed surprised at such a thing, blinking. He shook his head. "No, I"m fine."

"I think the heat's making you drowsy," she said apologetically. "I just can't get warm."

He shook his head again. "The last thing you need right now is to take ill."

"No," she said, reaching out of the coat and turning down the heat. "The last thing we need is for you to fall asleep at the wheel."

"I told you, I'm ... fine," he mumbled, head nodding forward. It snapped up again. "Mmmhhh..." he rubbed his eyes and they stayed only half open. "'S just warm in here, is all..." Nod, nod, snap.

She reached out and shook his shoulder. "Come on, pull over. I'm going to drive for a while. You're not safe."

"Mmmmhhh?" He blinked owlishly at her and they nearly ran off the road as it was. He blinked at the road. "Maybe you're right," he mumbled. He pulled over to the side and pushed the gearshift into park, yawning again.

She unwound herself from his coat and scooted over, reaching past him to open his door. "Come on, go around to the passenger side. I'm more awake than you."

He smiled a brief, sleepy smile, and rested his hand on her back for a moment. It was burning hot, far hotter than usual. Then he slid out of the seat and wobbled out of the vehicle entirely. As soon as he left its stifling confines, the cold air hit him, flecked with little spotty raindrops. It felt inordinately good. He tilted his head back a little, letting the air cool his neck, and walked round to the other side. Opening the door and climbing in, he pushed the coat toward her. "You'll need it," he said, at her quizzical look. "I'll be too warm in here for me to wear it, after all." He settled himself in and looked at her through half-open eyes.

She nodded, and shifted enough to put it on, rolling the sleeves up so she could use her hands. She had to shift the seat all the way forward to reach the pedals. ""Maybe we should stop before the border and both of us get some sleep."

"Mmmh," he mumbled. "D'you think that's wise? They're on a closer lookout, now."

"You're probably right," she agreed ruefully. "Okay. Four hours to the border." She eased back onto the road, and her heart nearly skipped a beat when a police car passed them, but it continued on without stopping. "You're definitely right. No more stopping."

"Mmmhmm," he mumbled. "Give me a couple hours and then I'll take over again." His eyes were nearly closed, and he blinked slowly and continuously. He reached out and turned the heat back up. "Y'don't need to take any more chill than you have" here he yawned again"already." He settled back with a sigh and closed his eyes, head already rolling to the side. "Mmmmhh," he said again. He made himself comfortable, hands folded over his middle, and soon she could hear snoring again. Outside the car, the wilderness flowed by, though Clair hardly saw it. The yellow stripe in the road drew them onwards, towards the border.


	9. Returning

Unreasonable Addiction

Chapter 9: Returning

By Yumegari and LRH, ed. Skylanth

It was beginning to get light again when Clair turned off the gravel road into a narrow, brush-filled campground, even though it was still dark under the thick trees. "We're here," she said unnecessarily, glancing at the compass that they had 'borrowed', along with two backpacks and a coat for her from a hiking store at the last exit. "The border's just that way, about a quarter mile." She pointed off into the woods.

He nodded and left the passenger seat, pulling the overstuffed rucksack out with him and pushing his arms through its straps. It looked a little odd on his big black duster coat. He crossed round to her side and waited, looking off into the woods where she'd pointed.

She got out and dragged her own pack out, hoisting it with some difficulty onto her shoulders. There were just too many resources that she couldn't leave behind, and the insulated box of chemicals took up so much room. Frank on his leash tangled around her legs, completing the ridiculous picture. She shut the car and locked it, pocketing the keys out of habit as much as any other reason. She shuddered slightly as the early-morning cold seeped through her new coat, but smiled up at him. "And we're off," she quipped, leading the way.

After a beat, he shook his head and followed her, easily catching up, feet crunching through the snow. He looked back occasionally, partly to see if they were being followed, and partly to look back at Clair, whom he'd already outpaced. A slight wind stirred his hair and he had to admit that, right now, getting out of that car he'd been stuck in for six days felt terribly good. He didn't like the outdoors much, as a rule, preferring the quiet and climate-control of a library or laboratory or even his own home, whatever it happened to be at the time, but right now, all there was was the crisp air, the snow, the quiet, and the space.

She tried to keep up, but with his longer legs, Clair found herself lagging behind again and again. It had been nearly painful to leave the heat of the car, and the slight wind did awful things to her nose. After the third near-trip, she scooped up Frank and set him on top of her backpack, where he seemed much happier. At least he was warm against the back of her neck, which helped.

Octavius looked back a few times, seeing her lag again and again, and tried to slow down. The last thing any of them needed was to get too far apart. He proceeded like this for about another fifteen minutes or so, looking back, slowing, continuing, looking back, slowing, until they reached the fence. He stopped and examined it.

She leaned against a tree to take the weight of the pack off her shoulders. The fence stretched endlessly in both directions, eight feet tall and topped in three strands of barbed wire. But luck was with them. Not far from where they stood, a small, branchy tree had fallen onto it. It was practically a ladder. Trying to catch her breath, she indicated it with a nod. "Up and over."

He looked at the tree. And realized he'd never climbed a tree before. Plenty of walls, yes. And then, always with the aid of his actuators. Miscellaneous city-bound objects. But never a tree. Otto Octavius did not climb trees. Until now. Adjusting the bag more firmly between his shoulder blades, which prompted a keen longing for the weight and shift of the tentacles instead, he reached out, gripped the trunk, and started to climb up it. He paused halfway up and looked back at Clair. She waved him on, trying too hard to stifle a cough to speak. Her eyes watered, and her chest felt heavy and thick, but there wasn't anything she could do about this now.

After another glance back, he scaled the rest of the tree, then, once he'd made it to the top of the fence and over it, he looked down. A good eight-and-a half foot drop. He'd dropped three times that distance, easily. But, again, always with the actuators to control his descent. He frowned. No tree in the middle of an empty forest was going to defeat Doctor Octopus! He grasped a branch, dropped onto it, and then let himself fall the rest of the way, landing couched in a puff of disturbed snow. He stood and looked back at her.

She scrambled up the tree, remembering a similar feat featuring regularly in her childhood, over the back fence of her grandparent's property into the horse pasture behind. On the other side she looked at the drop, and looked at Otto. "I'll drop my bag, and then I'll jump. Can you..." She broke off, coughing, and almost lost her grip, but recovered. "Can you catch me?"

He nodded, stepping closer until he was right under her. He caught the bag as she dropped it, setting it down, watching the cat land gracefully nearby, as cats often do. He looked back up at her, waiting for her to jump. She gripped the branch, lowering herself as much as she could, and then let go. He caught her as she fell, arms wrapping tightly around her, and slipped in the snow, losing his balance and falling backward in another cloud, feet in the air. He curled around her. She lay in the snow a moment, laughing. "Let me up, Otto. I've got snow down my neck."

He released her, watching her rub the stuff from under her collar, then put a hand to the side of her face. "Are you all right?" he asked, his smile fading and his brow furrowed in puzzlement. "You're breathing loudly."

She snuffled, rubbing her nose. "I'm just out of breath. Too many hours in the lab, not enough time hiking in the woods. And I seem to be catching a cold."

"Hnnnh," was his only reply. He stood and looked down at her as the cat picked his way toward her. "We can't slow down," he said, putting out his hand to help her stand.

She picked up Frank's leash from the snow and stood up, relying far too much on Otto's help. Putting the bag back on, she pulled the compass out of her pocket, checked it, and pointed in the direction that they'd been going. "There's a road that way. It'll lead us to Wyette." She closed her eyes, visualizing the map. "Maybe a mile to the road."

He ran a hand briefly over her hair and nodded before continuing across the snow, which was much deeper here, leading slowly uphill. He slogged along through snow halfway up his shins, trying to create a path for her as she walked behind him. It was starting to get tiresome. He pulled at his collar and considered unbuttoning the coat altogether, as leather was remarkably good for trapping heat. He unbuttoned the collar at least, and continued wading.

She followed as best she could, picking her way in his footsteps where the path was broken. Frank demanded to be put back up on her shoulders. Her pack seemed to grow heavier and heavier, and it got harder for her to breath as the incline grew steeper. After, at most, three-quarters of a mile, she had to stop, leaning, gasping against a tree. "A break...need a break."

He walked back to where she leaned against the tree, also breathing heavily. Looking down at her, he waited for her to catch her breath. One hand lifted, hesitated, and then reached out to rub her back. He looked about their surroundings as he did so, already squinting in the light despite the sunglasses. It looked like it was shaping up to be a painfully sunny day.

She leaned forward, taking deep breaths. The cold air stung her throat, and she coughed. It had a nasty, wet sound. She was shivering and sweating at once, her skin clammy and cold. She shook her head, cleared her throat and straightened. "We've got to keep going."

He rubbed her back for another moment, then started walking again, wading more slowly through the snow, and looking back more often.

Once they reached the road, it got easier to walk, but she began to stumble, her eyes half shut. Every breath was painful now, bubbling down through her chest like ice water. And she wasn't getting enough air. She slowed and slowed to a stop, just trying to breathe.

He walked back to her, slipping an arm around her to hold her up, his head next to hers. "What is it?" he asked softly, bending over her. "What's wrong?"

"...can't breathe," she said hoarsely. "Hurts..." She fought to keep her eyes open. "Feels like... I'm drowning..."

He picked her up, sweeping her legs from under her, and carried her to a slightly darkened copse of trees, looking about to see if they could be seen, then knelt in the snow, still holding her. He pushed her shoulders upright. "What should I do? Tell me!"

"Geh," she coughed. "I think... s'pneumonia... Fluid in th'lungs." She shuddered and coughed rackingly, curling in on herself. "'m too cold..."

He pulled the rucksack from her back, and then wriggled his own off, unbuttoning his coat and putting it on her. "There's nothing else I can do for that. Tell me what I can do..."

She struggled to think. First year med school. Climactic illnesses. Pneumonia. Get the patient into a warm, dry place as soon as possible. Keep head and torso elevated. "Get me... out of the cold," she coughed. "'s making it worse."

Octavius thought on that, then looked back at the road. It was empty, and the nearest town was a mile away. He growled, his brow furrowed, and tried to think. There would be no way to get her to the town by himself quickly enough. At least, not now. Bitterly, he upbraided himself once again for leaving his actuators at homeif he'd had them with him, he could have gotten her to the town easily. He pushed a hand through his hair and looked at the road again. A dark shape moved in the distance.

A car.

He wrestled one of the backpacks onto her, and turned, crouching in front of her, his back facing her. "Grab hold, I've got an idea," he said.

She reached around his shoulders and clung on, wrapping her legs around his hips and pressing the side of her face into the back of his neck. He was so warm... Frank, bright cat that he was, hopped up on her back pack and clung there.

Leaning forward to keep her balanced felt terribly familiar. He waded up to the road again, and stopped, then reached back, almost completely around himself, and extricated the gun from the inner pocket of his longcoat. He stepped further into the road as the car drew closer and cocked the gun, slowly bringing it to eye-level of the driver. He stood perfectly still, Clair clinging to his back and the wind ruffling his hair.

Clair lifted her head to watch blurrily through his hair. The gun and Otto's obvious intent made her skin tighten uncomfortably, but she couldn't summon the words to stop him. Instead, she closed her eyes again and buried her face in his shoulder.

The car skidded to a stop in front of Otto, maybe ten feet separating them. Inside, the driver just stared at him, mouth hanging open. He was alone in the big sedan, seemingly stunned by their appearance in the middle of this otherwise-deserted road.

Octavius strode up to the car and pulled open the luckily unlocked back door, bundling Clair and her cat and the bags into the backseat. He got in himself a moment later, closing the door and pressing the barrel of the gun to the driver's head. "Drive. The town of Wyette is not far," he growled.

The driver, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a turtle-neck, trembled. "You're the boss, man." Carefully, he let up on the brake and the car moved again, heading towards the town. "Don't hurt me, please. I've got a wife and two kids."

Clair stirred, opening her eyes heavily. "Don' let me fall asleep," she said weakly, struggling to sit up. How had she gotten so weak so fast? She'd seen the effects of pneumonia before, acute or otherwise, but never imagined that she'd be victim to it.

"Just drive and I might consider it," Octavius spat. He switched the gun to his other hand, still keeping it pressed to the driver's head, and leaned toward Clair, taking her hand in his other one. "Talk to me, then," he said, leaning in close and squeezing her hand. "Keep talking. Like you did with me. Say something."

"'m cold," she said. "'Monia's nasty... fluid in th' lungs. Displacing air." Without moving her head, her eyes tracked to look at him. "It almost... never snows in Seattle. I'm not used to the cold anymore."

Octavius poked the driver with his gun. "You. Turn up the heat." He turned back to Clair. "It's still cold in New York," he murmured, leaning close to her again. On an impulse, he reached out and wrapped his free arm around her, pulling her close to him, trying to share his warmth. "Tell me of the winters you had those six years," he murmured into her hair. He tried to keep his voice calm, though he was sure she could feel his heart pounding.

She _could _feel his heart pound, even as hers slowed. His heat was burning her, and it felt so good... "My first winter there, it snowed. Lots of snow. Gave the ambulances trouble getting up the hills. Seattle's all hills. Since then, just rain. S'always raining. So grey. Th'whole state's grey and green."

The driver looked anxiously at them through the rear-view mirror, but he did as he was told. "What's wrong with her?" he asked suddenly. "She dyin'?"

"No," Octavius growled, nudging with the gun again. "Just keep driving. She won't die. I won't let her..." He looked down at Clair again. "I won't let you die... stay with me. Keep talking."

"Not going to die," she said firmly. "I'm thirsty. Need something to drink." Her eyes wandered around the car at random. "I thought we left the car in the woods?" She sounded confused.

"We did," he explained. "We're in a different one. It's the quickest way to get to the town. Once we get to the town, I'll..." He actually lost his words for a moment. "I'll find some way to help you."

"What's wrong with her?" asked the driver again. "Man, if I'd known you had a sick girl, you wouldna' had to threaten me."

Octavius grew still, then realization dawned and his eyes widened, gun hand going slack. _He doesn't recognize me. Doesn't recognize us. _ He lowered the gun, stuffing it back into the pocket of the longcoat. "I thought it would have been necessary," he said gruffly after a moment, then returned his attention to Clair.

"I don't know where you come from, but around here, we help folks who need it," said the driver, good-natured despite his obvious relief. "I'll take you two straight to the hospital in town."

Octavius' head whipped up to stare at him again. "No!" At the puzzled look, he actually floundered. "We can't... I mean... we ... we ... can't..." he looked down at Clair again, hand pushing her hair back from her face, feeling her fevered skin.

Clair's eyes had slipped shut, and her skin was pale, except for blazing fever spots burning high in her cheeks. "Can't do that," she contributed, without opening her eyes. She felt herself drifting, somewhere warm.

"Why not?" asked the driver, looking back at them strangely.

Octavius ignored him for the moment. "Clair," he said, lightly slapping her face. "Clair... Clair, stay with me. Open your eyes... open them!"

"Mm?" Clair opened her eyes, blinked. "I'm tired. Lemme sleep..."

"Hey, she's in a pretty bad way," protested the driver. "I don't know what problems you got, but she needs help."

"No, Clair, you can't fall asleep!" he shouted, gripping her shoulders. "You told me you didn't want to fall asleep! Open your eyes!" At another protest from the driver, he pointed ahead. "Just drive! I ... I ... Clair... Clair, say something..."

She opened her eyes again, fixing them slowly on him. "I'm here," she said, mostly lucid.

The driver turned to look at them. "We're comin' up on the town now. What do you want to do?"

Octavius glanced at him as though having no idea who the man was or what he was doing there. He returned his attention to Clair, one hand on the side of her face, thumb moving lightly against her cheekbone. "Clair..." he whispered. "We're still two days out of New York. Can you make it there?" He looked to come to a decision. "If you ... can't... we can seek help here... whatever the consequences..." His brows met and he smiled ruefully, almost sadly. "What will we do?" he asked.

"I can make it," she said after a moment's consideration. As warmth continued to creep in, she felt more alert, though her words were slurred a little. She frowned, thinking. "I need to be warm, and propped up, and I need something to drink." She coughed again, harshly. "We can't go to a hospital here."

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, lips pressed softly and lingeringly against the skin, fingers in her damp hair. "We'll continue on, then," he said, holding her close. He looked up at the man in the driver's set. "Go into town. We'll find our own way," he said quietly.

Clair struggled to sit up more, to see past Otto to the driver. "Who's that?" she asked, suddenly dizzy.

"It's not important" Octavius started.

"I'm Sam Miller," the driver said helpfully, nodding a greeting to her in the mirror. "Your man here flagged me down for a ride. He was a little more forceful about it than he needed to be, but I'm glad to help. I'm glad you're doing better, you weren't doin' too well."

Eyes on the road, Octavius remained silent, still holding her. His heart still thundered in his chest, though it was slowing. His fingers curled in her hair. He dropped his head and whispered to her, "He doesn't recognize us."

She nodded subtly, though it caused her head to start spinning again. "Thank you, Mr. Miller." She looked out the window, seeing a small town around them. "Where are we?"

"You're in Wyette," he said. "Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"

"She's sure," Octavius replied. "Just leave us off ... " his eyes roved until he spotted an out-of-the-way motel. "There," he said, pointing. "She just needs some rest, is all."

Miller looked extremely skeptical, but he didn't ask any more questions, whether out of discretion or a memory of a gun pressed to his head. He pulled over in front of the hotel and stopped the car, turning around, one arm slung over the seat-back. "You take good care of her, alright?"

A moment passed where Octavius stared at the other, an almost blank gaze, his eyes lidded. "I will," he said after a moment. "I had promised to protect her..." he continued, almost unaware of what he was saying. Was it simply the adrenaline having cut out? He didn't know. All he knew was that everything suddenly seemed strangely, bizarrely ... unreal to him. He pushed the door open, having trouble tearing his gaze from the other, and left the car, collecting Clair and Frank and the bags. They stood on the curb as Miller drove away, Octavius with his arms wrapped around Clair, Frank twining around Clair's legs.

Clair took her weight unsteadily, shaking her head unsuccessfully to clear it. She had gone from freezing to burning up, just in the space of that car ride. "Unn," she said, holding her head tiredly. "We still need a car."

"Yes, yes we do," came the reply. He looked about the parking lot. It was still early enough in the morning that people hadn't started stirring yet, and he idly wondered what day it was. He spotted a somewhat rusted Chevrolet in a corner, all but invisible to any of the windows about the place. "Come on," he said, picking up the bags and leading her toward it. "We can take that one. It's more unobtrusive that way." As they walked, he started searching his trouser pockets.

She leaned against him, her legs trembling. She recognized the symptoms now that her mind was working again. A high fever, which would eat away at her strength until it could be brought down. "He was nice," she said, referring to the departed Miller. "I'm glad we didn't just take his car."

"Hmph," Octavius harrumphed, still searching his pockets. "I suppose you're right." He gave up and started looking through the pockets of his coat, which Clair still wore. After a moment, he came up with some odd, thin, sharp tool that clicked out of its base when he pressed a button on it. He sighed and started to work on the lock with it, jiggling it, twisting it, jiggling it some more.

Clair shifted to lean against the Chevrolet, leaving Otto's hands free. "When did you learn how to pick locks?" she asked idly, watching his hands.

"One learns all kinds of things when one takes up a life of crime," he replied absently. "I think it was on a rainy night in Manhattan after Spider-man had, once again, destroyed my arms. I had no other way to get back to my laboratory and I certainly wasn't going to take a cab, not in Manhattan at three o'clock in the morning, I'd either be shot or turned in for drug money. So I found a little-used parking lot, used a claw, and kept trying until I got it right. At five-thirty. I only just escaped." The lock popped open. "Ah!" He pulled open the door and picked up the bags, pushing them into the backseat. He did the same with the cat, who meowed in protest. He then turned to look at Clair.

With difficulty, she climbed in and slid across into the passenger seat, fastening the battered seatbelt and letting her head fall back against the seat. "Two days," she mused aloud. "We're almost there."

"Almost," he agreed. He leaned over the steering column and pulled open the ignition. Two minutes of fiddling later, the car sputtered to life and he slid into the driver's seat, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the street as calmly as can be. "The road atlas is in one of the bags," he said. "D'you think you could get it and tell me where we go next?"

She reached back and dug around in the right bag, coming up with the map and fumbling it open. Her hands shook just slightly as she spread it across her lap. "Okay, here's Wyette-" She broke off, coughing again. "Achk. I still need something to drink. And we need to head south, around Lake Michigan, and then northeast into New York." She spotted a street sign. "There, that will lead to the interstate."

He took the street, but before they reached the interstate, he turned again, pulling into the parking lot of a small gas station. "Any preferences?" he asked, digging in his pockets.

"Mm. Any sports drink, the types meant to re-hydrate you. Gatorade, powerade, that sort of thing. Nothing lemon flavored, please. And saltines, please." She lifted her head. "Do we need gas?"

He peered at the gas gauge. "No, looks like this one has a nearly full tank. We were lucky." He looked up, catching his reflection in the rearview mirror and let out a short bark of laughter. "I don't think anyone is going to recognize me," he said. "Not now, anyway."

Clair laughed and ran her thumb over the week's beard that decorated his face. "With this and without the coat, you're pretty anonymous."

"Let's hope so," he replied, catching her fingers and squeezing them. "Your hands are cold," he murmured, bringing her fingers to his lips for a moment, and she could feel the warmth of his lips and the tickling of his beard before he released her and left the car, walking into the gas station.

Clair let her head fall back once more, and her eyes drifted shut. Now that the delirium was over, sleep was probably safe. Unless her fever got much higher.

Her half-dreaming state was interrupted when the door opened, and Octavius seated himself behind the wheel again, holding a bag of what appeared to be bottles and cans of something. He fished out a bottle of something purple and handed it to her.

She looked at the bottle sleepily for a moment before remembering what it was and taking it, rolling it between her palms. She held it to her forehead, letting it cool the hectic skin. "Thank you."

He opened a large can of ... something and gulped a good deal of it down in one go, shuddering at the taste. "Ngeh," he observed, fitting the can into the car's drink holder. "We'd best get going, now," he said, reaching around the steering column again and twisting the wires until the ignition started once more. Within minutes, they were on the interstate.

* * *

Johnson knocked hesitantly at Hanover's door, the unfortunate message crumpled in his hand. He pushed it open. "Bad news from Lort, sir."

Hanover looked up from counting locations on a map and frowned. "What bad news?"

"They've slipped through, somehow. The Canadian police have combed every inch of the area, and no one's seen them." He handed him the scribbled memo. "There's a possible sighting near Toronto, but nothing definite."

Hanover scowled, yanking the memo from the other's hand and glaring at it. "Damn!" he growled. "Why are we always a step behind that psychotic son of a bitch? He can't be that smart that he's always evading us!" he got up and started to pace. "The roads all have checkpoints! We've scoured that TransCan highway with a Brillo pad! The borders are all blockaded! How could we possibly be missing them!"

"To be fair, sir, he's smart enough that he's still out there, after how many years? Longer than I've been on the force."

"You'd think he'd be too old for this kinda life, then," Hanover grunted, flopping back down in his chair. He glared at the map. "Can't even track his probable hideout, he's had so damn many of 'em. He's painfully visible but it's impossible to track him." He growled.

"I've been trying to get back in touch with Captain Morgan," Johnson continued. "But he's been out of reach, joining in the search. I can't find out if he still has Dr. Holmes with him or not."

Hanover blinked. "You mean, he might not have Holmes with him any more? Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"That's the thing," Johnson said, rubbing his stubble with a thumbnail. "I can't find out one way or the other. Lines keep getting crossed: I can't get the names of any of the witnesses from the Canadian cops, and the information isn't on any of the paperwork we've received yet. The way it looks, he's on his own now."

"If Holmes isn't with Octavius, she could be anywhere," Hanover grated. "This whole thing is falling apart at the seams. I'm gonna need people out there searching for her."

"We don't have enough manpower for two full-out searches," Johnson pointed out. "We can call out a civilian search, but that's about it. Our chances of finding her alive at this point are..." He shrugged one shoulder matter-of-factly. "The last place we have her confirmed alive is at the border crossing in Blaine. That's a lot of ground to cover."

"She could be dead in a ditch by now for all we know," Hanover growled. "And Octavius freely on his way home." He slammed his fist on the desk in front of him, causing the monitor to jump and a coffee cup to skitter an inch or so. "Son of a bitch! He's done nothing but outmaneuver us the whole time!"

"The only thing we know is that he's heading for New York," said Johnson crossly. "We can try to head him off there, get some answers. Otherwise, the only way we're going to find her is if she walks into a police station somewhere."

"Then we'll have to tighten security. Set up checkpoints on every road going into that godforsaken city if we have to, but I want Octavius FOUND!" He sat back, growling. "God_damned_ supervillains. Why the _hell _did I take this job?"


	10. Home

Unreasonable Addiction

Chapter 10: Homecoming

By Yumegari and LRH, ed. Skylanth

Clair was awake when they crossed the line into New York, but barely. She watched the landscape slide by outside her window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. She took a long sip from her bottle, feeling her head swimming. The fever had gotten worse.

"We've finally crossed into New York," Octavius observed with an audible sigh. "It shouldn't be much longer if we keep going as we have." At least the inside of the car wasn't quite so unbearably hot, now, but he found himself wondering when the last time he'd slept was. Stubbornly, he'd driven the whole two days through, having only stopped for a two-hour nap once. Every nerve crackled on the caffeine he'd been steadily drinking, and his eyes burned, not only because of the sun. He looked at Clair when she made no response. "Clair?"

"Mmm?" She looked around at him slowly, her eyes bright with fever. "I'm awake. New York, right? Good. We're almost home."

He reached out a hand, touching her face. "It's gotten worse, hasn't it? Your fever." He returned his eyes to the road. "Hnnnn," he said, a thoughtful sound.

She nodded, pulling away from his hand. It was too hot. "I think so. Penny for your thoughts?"

He returned the hand to the steering wheel. "Things will be easier once we reach the city," he said. "I can control my actuators almost from the other side of the city. I can have them ... meet us halfway, if you will."

"Ahh," she said softly, smiling and putting her head back against the glass. "I almost forgot about them. They'll make things easier?"

"Much easier," he replied. "I tire of all this driving and navigating the city streets will prove nothing more than a waste of time."

"Mkay," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I need to wake up. Sleeping all the time isn't going to help me get better." She leaned forward and turned on the radio, twisting the knob until she found a local station. "We're what, an hour from the city?"

"More or less," he replied. The radio provided at least some kind of stimulation, because Clair seemed more awake. Though whether it was because she enjoyed the music or because it grated was unclear. It grated on Octavius, though, but he realized that Clair had left her CDs in the SUV and whoever owned this car apparently believed that driving music was something that happened to other people. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel and he began to grow impatient.

She sat up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. The irritating pop song on the radio ended, and a newscast came on, complaining about the traffic. "All routes are moving extremely slowly, because of FBI checkpoints on every artery into the city. The search for Dr. Octopus continues to intensify, and police are checking every car coming in on these routes for the criminal. The FBI asks you to please have patience with these necessary measures and to cooperate with any officials. Traffic is moving smoothly through most points, with no more than a one-hour wait anywhere."

"Oooh," said the female DJ sympathetically as the music started again. "I'm glad I don't have a commute, Dave."

Octavius turned to look at Clair, one eyebrow raised. "They've gotten their act together, haven't they?" he observed drily.

"Took them long enough," she answered, but she'd gone paler than she was already. "You're not worried? Even if we're on the smaller roads, there are going to be police everywhere." As if to prove her point, they passed a squad car at the side of the road, lights flashing and its driver peering in the window of a large SUV parked in front of it.

Octavius frowned at that. "I'm too far out of range," he said cryptically.

It took her a second, but she realized what he meant. "Well, get closer. Just, drive carefully. Don't do anything to attract attention."

"Yes, I'll bear that in mind," he said, eyes all over the road. Several more minutes passed in this fashion, and they passed a second pulled-over SUV before Octavius frowned, making a low sound in his throat. His brows met.

"They never found the car," she thought aloud. "They think you've still got Brandon's car. That's something, at least."

"Mmmhmm," he said, his eyes straight ahead. They went unfocussed. "There," he said carefully.

She looked over at him, saw that he wasn't watching the road. "Hey! Pay attention, you're still driving!"

"Give me a moment," he said slowly, still concentrating. The car began to drift.

She lunged across the front seat and grabbed the wheel, steadying it. "Park the car first, then do this!" she hissed as her head pounded from the sudden movement. "Look, there's a lot there."

He seemed to come out of it a little, and turned into the parking lot. But as soon as the car stopped, he grew still and unresponsive again, his eyes unfocussed, his breathing slow and deliberate.

Moving slowly to save her head, Clair reached behind her seat and re-packed the duffle bags, snagging Frank and zipping him into one too, ignoring his protests. He'd been a pest these last two days, always wanting attention when she just wanted to sleep, and then hiding under Otto's legs when she snapped at him. She was just packing the gun from the bar into the last pocket when someone knocked on the window. She spun around, then grabbed her head, trying to keep it from falling off. By the time her eyes could focus gain, the young man outside, a parking attendant, had obviously recognized them. Before he could shout out, she brought the gun up, leaning back so she could hold it out at arm's length between her and the window. She locked her elbow to keep her arm from shaking too badly. "Otto," she said warily. The young man stayed frozen where he was. "Otto, come on, come back. I don't know what to do!"

"Just... hold your aim," he said slowly, sounding as though he were in a trance. "No matter ... what he does..."

She brought up her other hand to help support the weight of the gun. Can't look weak. "Hurry up," she muttered to Otto. "I'm going to drop this gun any minute, and then he's going to scream and the police will come." The shaking got worse, but at least the boy didn't move. He seemed hypnotized by the barrel of the handgun.

Octavius, however, had fallen silent, his eyes half-lidded and unfocussed, lips parted. He still breathed slowly, and occasionally his hand twitched, or his eyes would dart.

The gun grew increasingly heavy in her hand as the standoff continued. "Don't scream," she said to the boy, not caring if he could hear her or not through the window. "Don't scream, don't scream." He must have heard her, because he blinked slowly and took in a deep breath. She tightened her grip on the gun. "Otto, come on!"

She could hear him take in a long breath. He reached around her and curled his hands around the gun, holding it up. His eyes still hadn't completely regained their focus. "They're almost here," he said.

She breathed in deeply as well, sagging against him, leaving the gun in his hands. She felt so weak... But the boy was still standing there, and his shoulders were relaxing, and he was about to scream... Octavius raised the gun and his sunglasses slipped down, revealing his unfocussed yet direct stare. The boy refroze, holding his hands up slowly. His mouth worked as if he were trying to say something, but no sound reached them.

"How much longer?" Clair asked. Once the arms were there, she reasoned somehow, everything would be alright.

"Soon," he said, the gun never wavering, his gaze never moving.

A moment longer, and Clair could hear ... something. A rhythmic percussive sound, just at the edge of hearing. Outside the car, the boy obviously heard it too, for his eyes darted around, searching for the source. The sound grew louder. People ran down the street behind the boy and he turned to see what was causing all that commotion.

Crawling over the nearby building was something that resembled nothing more than a huge metal daddy longlegs, glinting silvery in the winter sunlight. They leapt from the building and made their way to the parking lot and toward them, the sound growing even louder, claws gouging dents in the asphalt.

Octavius breathed and his eyes regained their focus. "Yes," he breathed. "Yes!" They drew closer and were revealed to be splattered and festooned with webbing, the reason for which became abundantly clear the moment Octavius left the car and reached for the arms. An all-too familiar red-and-blue-clad figure swung in, a kick sending Octavius toppling before the arms reached him.

"Otto!" Clair shouted, climbing over the driver's seat and out the open door, holding the door to remain upright.

Octavius snapped to his feet, his real arms up to block the next few punches as his artificial arms struck with blinding speed. Spider-man leapt out of the way of the striking claws, flipped, and grabbed Octavius from behind, pivoting and throwing him where he landed with a bone-jarring thud. The actuators struck again, only to miss and Spider-man cast a web-line, swinging on the harness in a wide arc that slammed his foot against Octavius' head just as he'd made it to his knees. Octavius' head snapped back and he fell again. One actuator whipped through the air, tangling the web-line and sending Spider-man flying, but he soon came leaping back in a diving tackle that once again knocked Octavius over. The actuators reached for Spider-man who rolled, bringing Octavius up with him, who wasn't able to stop them in time. One claw struck his head with a sickening crack and he went limp, flopping onto the pavement.

Clair screamed, losing her grip and falling to her knees. She could hardly see, her head hurt so bad. She braced her hands against the ground, unable to bring her head up. Her vision swam, filled by a geometric shape that took a moment to resolve. The gun. Otto had dropped it when he left the car. She gripped it and pushed herself up, raising it with both hands. Red and blue made a brilliant target that even she could see. "Leave him alone!" she screamed. "Leave him alone or I'll shoot you!"

"Huh?" came the witty reply as Spider-man turned to stare at her. "Waitaminute... aren't you Clair Holmes?"

He took a step toward her and was broadsided by the actuators, which still ran on the last command that Octavius had given them. They situated themselves between Clair and Spider-man and swiped at the other whenever he drew near, slapping him out of the air when he tried leaping. He webbed them and they sliced and writhed their way free, always between Clair and anyone else.

She held the gun up, her strength buoyed by desperation, aiming through the weaving actuators at Spider-Man. "You leave him alone," she said hoarsely. "Don't touch him."

He stopped, watching her between the actuators. "Okay," he said, lifting one hand. The snap of a claw caused him to lower it again. "Okay. He's down. You can come with me, now. I'll take you to the police. They've been looking for you."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," she said, her eyes darting past him to Otto, laying on the ground. Her chest felt horribly tight. The gun began to droop, and she snapped it back up, aiming as well as she could at his chest.

That brought him up short. Usually the response was something more like,_ Oh, Spider-man, please save me! _or something along those lines. But then again, she certainly didn't look well, her eyes fever-bright, her face pale. Her hands, which still held up the gun, shook violently and her breathing sounded laboured. He lifted a hand again, holding it out to her. "You're sick. I'll get you to a hospital."

"No!" she shouted, and then coughed harshly, doubling up, but the gun stayed aimed in his direction. "Get away from him," she said when she could speak again. "I'll kill you if you touch him again, I swear it!"

For all his genius, Peter Parker was a simple, straightforward kind of man, and this bizarre loyalty of a very sick hostage to Doc Ock was confusing him to say the least. He looked back at Octavius and saw him stir.

Octavius forced his eyes open, blinking, and rolled onto his stomach, pushing himself up, getting his feet under himself and swaying slightly. The actuators stepped over Spider-man and approached him, one tentacle rubbing against his cheek. "Yes," he murmured, running his fingers along it. "It's good to see you, as well." As he unbuttoned his shirt, Spider-man took a step toward him.

"Spider-Man," Clair yelled in warning. Her finger tightened on the trigger, and she stabilized her aim with her other hand. "Don't move. I mean it!"

Spider-man froze and turned to look at Clair. Were his face visible, she would have seen disbelief written on it.

Octavius secured the harness around himself, clasping it fast. The needles penetrated his spine again, making him shudder, and he gasped. He'd almost forgotten how ... powerful those actuators made him feel. Strong and alive and ... strangely euphoric. They lifted him up and, effortlessly shifting their balance, picked up the unsuspecting Spider-man just as his Spider-sense caused him to turn, and threw him so far that he disappeared behind a building. They lowered him to the ground again beside Clair.

She dropped the gun and looked up at him, breathing heavily, her eyes unfocused. "Are you... okay?"

One actuator reached into the car, snagging the bags and the cat, who yowled indignantly. Another handed her his shirt and he put his arms around her. "I'm fine," he said, almost vaguely. "But you aren't." With that, he picked her up in his arms, his real ones, his still bare skin hot against hers. An actuator dropped the cat in the bag into Clair's arms and then she felt herself lifted into the air, his arms tight around her.

Holding the cat in one arm, she wrapped the other around Otto's neck, putting her face against his shoulder. The fever had eaten what little spare flesh she had. "Your head," she mumbled, trying to stay conscious. She'd over-exerted herself. "How's your head?"

"It's all right," he replied as they swayed, a fast and smooth movement, over the rooftops. "Don't worry about me. Save your strength." She felt him shiver, but they continued at the same pace. His gaze stayed forward, but his fingers curled in her hair. "Stay conscious," he said.

"'M trying," she said. "It's the fever. I think... it needs to come down. Soon. Anything over 106 causes brain damage. I don't know how hot I am. Gahh..." She broke off coughing again. Blood flecked her lips, and she wiped it away.

He looked down at her, seeing the blood on her lips, and his grip on her tightened. If at all possible, the actuators moved faster, the swaying motion became a little jerkier. Suddenly, his head whipped to the side and he lurched to the right just in time to avoid another stream of web-fluid. "Stay out of my business!" he growled, one actuator grabbing Spider-man's head before he could dodge and throwing him like a 90-mile-an-hour fastball. The swaying and lurching continued until they suddenly dropped and the actuators pushed them both through a window.

The place was vaguely familiar to her. He dropped to his feet and ran heavily, kicking open the bathroom door and turning on the water with one actuator. He set her down next to the tub and knelt next to her, peeling of his coat from around her and starting to work on her clothes.

"Ngghm," she moaned, protesting the cold air against her skin, but she helped what she could. Her hands were too weak to close around the buttons.

He finished with her buttons and pulled her shirt and bra off, one actuator curling around her under her arms to pull her up so that he could pull off her trousers and her shoes and socks, tossing them aside. She felt herself lifted up and placed in the cold shower water. He held her up by her shoulders, his hands quickly growing cold under the water.

She arched up, trying to escape the cold water as it drove what breath there was from her lungs. But once the shock of it passed, she relaxed against his hands, feeling the unbearable heat inside her begin to leech away. The pressure behind her eyes began to ease.

One hand pushed her wet hair away from her face. "Clair," he murmured, his face next to hers. "Open your eyes." Cold water spattered on his face, beading on his sunglasses and washing away the blood that still oozed sluggishly from the wound dealt him by his own actuator. It stung his ear but he didn't move, his hand still smoothing her hair back.

She did, slowly. The light seemed very dim after the fever spots that still danced behind her eyelids. She was still too warm to have to shiver, but there was already an improvement. "We're here?"

"Yes," he said, nodding. "We're here." That breif smile again, and she could see him looking at her over the rims of his sunglasses.

She smiled back, but it faded. "You're bleeding." One hand rose out of the water to touch the wound gently.

His hand touched the same spot, came away red. He blinked at it as though failing to understand why it was there. "I am," he said after a moment. He put his fingers under the flow of water, washing the blood away. "It'll heal," he said. He put the backs of his fingers against her face. "Your fever's gone down," he said, effectively changing the subject.

"Mmhmm," she nodded. She tried to stand herself, but her head rebelled and sent the world spinning around her. "Unnn. I should probably get out. Wrap up in something warm."

He shook his head, a vaguely amused expression crossing his features. "You need to be warm, you need to be cool, you need to be warm again... How much longer is this back and forth going to continue?" he asked, lifting her out of the shower and wrapping her in a towel, an actuator turning the water off. He rubbed her dry with the air of someone perfectly comfortable with taking charge of the situation, even rubbing her hair so that it stuck out in damp spikes.

She blinked as he rubbed her head, trying to keep it as still as possible. She was incredibly dizzy. "My body's going to have trouble regulating its own temperature for a while," she explained. "The fever needed to be reduced, but mostly I'm going to have to keep warm."

He nodded, wrapping her in the towel, and realized that he was shirtless. Again. He curled his arms around her, his fingers in her hair. "Why am I shirtless more often in your presence than anyone else's? he mused, apropos of nothing.

"My seductive influence," she mumbled, only a spark in her eyes betraying the seriousness of her voice.

There was a pause, then he snerked with laughter. As with every time she heard him laugh, it sounded as though it was something to which he wasn't accustomed. It died down quickly, but a slight smile still played around the corners of his mouth as he picked her up again, though not without some difficulty. The actuators held them up as he made his way to what appeared to be a bedroom, if only by virtue of the fact that it held something that could be mistaken for a sleeping surface--a nest of blankets and pillows, decorated with books and papers which the actuators cleared away. He knelt, laying her down in the squashy mess of bedding.

She shifted, dragging a blanket over herself, rolling onto her side. She coughed weakly, still bringing up blood, but smiled. "That'll stop soon," she reassured him. "Just an infection." Her voice was soft and slurred, and she was falling asleep again. "'It's not fair," she said almost silently. "You're supposed to be my patient."

An actuator pulled the blinds, making the room quite dim indeed. She may have heard a series of snapping sounds, quiet but heavy clanking. She probably felt him crawl under the blankets behind her and wrap his arms around her, pulling her close. Maybe she heard him sigh and then murmur, "Despite the name, I'm not much of a doctor." His fingers traced aimless patterns along her forehead and cheek. "But I promised I would take care of you. I keep my promises, if nothing else."

"Mmm," she agreed. Something cold inside her chest uncurled, and she eased into sleep, warm, safe, and protected.

* * *

"Well, that was unproductive," said Johnson as they left the PD. He and Hanover had just met with the witness to Ock's return to New York, a pimple-faced parking attendant who couldn't describe the woman who had held a gun on him, but was full of stories about how Spider-Man had been, in his words "Smackin' that freak _down_!" until the girl had threatened him with her gun too. All the description he could give was that she "looked like she was half-dead." He shrugged, turning the collar of his coat up to cover his neck from the wet snow that was falling greyly. "Do you think it's Dr. Holmes?"

Hanover sighed, feet slogging through half-frozen slush. "It could be," he replied tersely. "I always thought there was a little too much complicity there." He gave a short laugh. "Hell, they could be lovers by now for all I know. Add more confusion to the mess that this case already is." He hunched his shoulders against a sudden wind. "I need a coffee," he grumbled. A café provided a solution to at least that much and they entered it, finding a booth. On the next booth was a copy of a newspaper and Hanover reached over the seat and grabbed it. The front page held a large picture of Spider-man and the headline "SPIDER-MAN, DOC OCK CONTINUE TO TERRORIZE CITY." Hanover raised his eyebrows. "Spider-man, huh?"

"But why would she be his accomplice?" Johnson asked rhetorically. "He cut off her effing ear. We found it in her fridge. That's just messed up.

"Wow" He looked at the paper. "That's a pretty good picture. The photographer was awfully close to the action."

Hanover blinked and looked down at the photo again. "Yanno, you're right," he said. "He was pretty close to the action." He peered at the article and the bylines. "Peter Parker, huh?" He looked back up at Johnson. "Forget the coffee," he said, bringing the paper up to his line of sight, finding the office address. "I'm gonna pay the Bugle office a visit. Talk to this Parker guy." With that, he stood, rolling the newspaper up and sticking it in the pocket of his coat.

Peter Parker was a scrawny kid with too much light in his eyes for his own good and nondescript features that would blend in anywhere. The perfect junior reporter. The fact that the kid had a camera slung around his neck only sharpened the image into something that almost seemed deliberate were it not for his awkwardness.

"You Peter Parker?' Hanover asked, rather unnecessarily.

"Yeah," he said, nodding, and his voice was all cracking fresh testosterone. "Uhm, can I ask what this is all about, Mr... uh..."

"Agent Brian Hanover, FBI," he said, flipping his ID in and out of his pocket with practiced ease. "You were there for that fight between Octopus and Spider-man?"

"You could say that..." Parker replied vaguely.

"Did you see the woman there? Short brown hair, thin, missing an ear?"

"Uh, the one who pointed a gun at... Spider-man?" Parker asked, almost stumbling over the name.

"Doctor Clair Holmes. Did you hear anything she or Octavius might have said?"

The kid practically blanched. "Uh, no, sir," he said, his eyes darting nervously. "I wasn't that close... " he held up the camera and its hypertrophied lens array. "Telephoto lens, you know. And I kinda... split after I took the picture."

"Understandable," Hanover grumbled grudgingly. "Anyone who might know? Like maybe Spider-man? Word around here is you know him."

"Uhm, yeah," Parker replied, sounding a little more at ease, but not much. "I know him."

"Think you can snag him long enough for me to talk to him?"

"Gee, Agent Hanover, I ..." he stopped at the intense stare he was receiving from Hanover. "I can probably get a hold of him soon. Maybe have him meet you somewhere?"

"The lobby here would be good," Hanover replied evenly, his gaze never leaving Parker's.

"Hey, Parker!" snapped J.J. Jameson, leaning out of his office and chewing on a cigar. "I'm not paying you to stand around and yak! Get out there and get me some more pictures of that web-head or you're fired!"

"Uh," Parker jerked a thumb toward the slamming door. "My boss. Gotta go. I'll get ahold of Spider-man for you, Agent Hanover. Just... just wait in the lobby or... something... yeah." He practically scurried from the room.

The hustle of the newsroom swirled around Hanover for another instant as he stood there, hands in his coat pockets, and thought. Then he turned and left the room, walking down to the lobby.

Johnson followed him down to the lobby, lost in thought. "Anything strike you as odd that the FBI can't track this bug down, but some scrawny kid with a press pass can find him?"

"I have a few theories," Hanover replied, "Each more ridiculous than the last. I think the kid's just got too much eager about him. The kind who follows people because he's obsessed with finding out all he can." He didn't say anything more until they reached the lobby, a metal-and-glass affair. He sat on a bench facing a huge plate-glass window that comprised most of the street-facing side of the building, and waited.

"Maybe we should offer him a job," Johnson replied half-seriously, sitting down himself, his feet stretched out in front of him.

"Heh," Hanover snerked. "Kid would replace us in about five years."

"Maybe not, then." said Johnson, smiling. "I should have brought a book."

"Plenty of newspapers about," Hanover remarked, looking at the stacks of newspapers piled carefully on the small tables.

Johnson snagged one reluctantly. "The Bugle's a rag, and everyone knows it. Entertainment, not news, is what you get out of here."

Hanover shrugged. "It's something to read, anyway." He lapsed into silence for an unmeasurable amount of time, staring about the place and apparently thinking. The stillness was broken when he sat bolt upright in the chair at the sight of something blue-and-red flashing past the window. "'Ja see that?" he asked.

"What?" Johnson asked, looking up from the article about an alien's head found in a trash can in Queens.

"That," Hanover pointed. "I think I saw him." Sure enough, two seconds later, the spandex-clad one walked into the lobby as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, nodding to the receptionist, who stared unabashedly. He strolled up to the two agents.

"Spider-man," Hanover said.

"The one and only," Spidey replied. He perched on a nearby chair and cocked his masked head attentively. "So, what brings you to call me here from an otherwise productive day of foiling madmen and counting my hair?"

"One madman in particular," Hanover replied, holding up that day's paper. "Doc Ock."

"Life of the party," Spidey replied. "But that's not what you wanna know, is it?"

"I want to know what you heard during your confrontation with him the other day."

"Oh, lots of whack and urrgg and crash, and a crazy woman with a gun telling me to stay away from Ock."

Hanover perked up at this. "She told you to stay away from him?"

"Yeah, and refused to let me take her to the police or to a hospital. Left pretty quietly with him, though."

"I thought as much," Hanover growled, tossing the paper back onto the table where it upset the entire carefully arranged stack.

Spider-man looked at him cannily. "You seem to know what's up with this case. Is there something between them? He almost seemed to be looking after her."

Hanover sighed, pushing his hand through his hair. "Just something that complicates things even further, is all. I'd suspected she wasn't his hostage at all, but this just proves it."

Johnson shook his head. "He went an awful long way to prove that she was his hostage back in Seattle. I can't imagine anyone volunteering to have her ear cut off. Think we've got a Stockholm here?"

Hanover sighed. "It could be. It would go a long way toward explaining their behaviour."

"Am I missin' something?" Spider-man queried, looking between them.

"I'd suspected that she was doing more than just complying with Octavius. However, I had no evidence to support it concretely, and he did cut off a portion of her ear in apparently an attempt to show that it truly was a hostage situation."

Spidey shuddered, but recovered, looking out the window as though in thought. "I dunno, women who end up too closely associated with Ock tend to find themselves wanting to stay."

Johnson nodded. "We've got the files on Dr. Trainer."

"Trainer... Stunner... probably others, too," Spider-man elabourated. "He even suckered some poor innocent old lady into almost marrying him. Turns out it was because she inherited an island with a nuclear reactor on it."

"May Parker, yes," Hanover said, thinking. "Any relation to that little dweeb photographer?"

There was an infinitesimal reaction to this, the barest grain of a snerk. "Yeah, she's his aunt."

"And you saved her and that's why he follows you around?"

"You could say that."

"Officially, you know," said Johnson dourly, looking at his feet. "We're not talking to you. The Bureau in no way, shape, or form condones vigilantes like you." He looked up, smiling lopsidedly. "Officially."

"Heh," came Spidey's reply and it almost seemed as though he grinned under that mask. "And officially, vigilantes like me have no truck with G-men like you. Officially. Anything else you needed to know?"

"You wouldn't happen to know where his hide-out is?" Johnson asked with good humour but no real hope, setting his own newspaper back on an intact stack, folded back the way it had been when he first grabbed it. "Where he might have stashed her?"

"Wish I knew," Spidey replied frankly. "Ock changes his hideouts like most people change their socks and in much the same manner-- leaves 'em smelly and useless."

"Hmm," was Hanover's reply. "Well, we'll be in town for another couple days. Send word with your little photographer friend if you find anything else out."

* * *

She was running.

She wasn't sure why, but she was running away from something. And whatever it was, it was faster than her. She could hear it catching up by leaps and bounds, a quiet, stealthy hunter, and she didn't dare look back to see what it was for fear that she might trip over the tangled cords that snaked across the ground, all of them leading somewhere to her left. All she could do was look ahead, to where she knew salvation waited in a forest of metal-branched trees. A black, menacing shadow waited there, and she was running her heart out to reach the safety of that shadow before whatever it was behind her caught up.

A merciless light shone from the follower, throwing a black shadow of her own in front of her, jolting and wavering across the ground, getting steadily shorter as the light caught up. But she knew that the only safe places to step were in the shadow; if it disappeared, she would fall through the floor and disappear. The light came closer, closer, shrinking the shadow until she had to shorten her steps to keep it under her feet, and then it burst into her mind--

She woke up abruptly, gasping. That set off her abused lungs and she began to cough, curling in on herself as the spasms wracked her throat, already raw from three days of slow recovery.

She heard a sleepy "Hmmnnhh?" beside her and an arm wrapped around her, big and warm, the hand smoothing her hair. "D'jou have a nightmare?" he murmured into her hair.

She nodded, getting the coughing under control with effort. "Haven't had a dream like that... since med school."

He rubbed her back absently, still half asleep. "What kind of a dream?" he mumbled.

She rolled over so she was facing him, her head pressed to his. "The type where something chases me... until I fall." She opened her eyes, watching him in the dim light.

He lay next to her, just as shirtless as before, the blanket under his arm and covering part of his chest. His hair surrounded his head and shoulders in a draping mass of slightly tangled black locks, rumpled and strangely soft-looking. He must have woken up at some time earlier, because the beard was gone, now, and a bandage covered part of his forehead. His eyes were half-open, regarding her sleepily, and his face carried the tiniest hint of a smile. "What was chasing you, I wonder?" he murmured. "Some dreadful tentacled beast?"

"Mmm, no," she said, smiling and playing idly with his hair. She was vaguely disturbed to find that she couldn't make a fist, but the lassitude of the moment kept her from dwelling on it. "A ... light. A harsh light. I was running to reach the shadows, but my own shadow disappeared and I fell."

"Hnnn," he said after a moment. "I'm sure someone could find a dozen meanings in something like that--" he yawned cavernously--"But I'm not one of them." His fingers twined in her hair. "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Better. Not great, but better," she said after a moment's consideration. "My head's attached to my neck again. But I'm really thirsty. How long have I been asleep?"

"I'm not sure myself," he replied. "But I think... maybe three days. I'd been sleeping the whole time as well."

"You shaved," she said, running her thumb along the line of his jaw. "The beard didn't suit you."

He smiled lazily at that. "No, not really. And it was dreadfully itchy." He kissed her forehead. "I'll get you something to drink." A pause. "As soon as I get up."

She sighed, noting the spongy, wet feeling inside her chest, and curled against him. "No hurry. I'm not all the way 'wake yet.""

"Mmm," he replied, curling his arms around her. "If we keep this up, we'll simply fall ... asleep again..." His fingers curled in her hair again. "Not a good thing... is it?"

"Probably not," she murmured, her eyes closed. "Dehydration would not be a good thing."

"Hnn..." He slitted his eyes open, then pushed himself up off the mattress. It took some time, but he made it out of the room. Strangely, the actuators followed after him like a bizarre pet. A few moments passed, and they returned, carrying two glasses of water and he dropped himself onto the bed again, sitting hunched forward. He looked back at her.

Clair struggled to sit up against a mound of pillows and reached for the water. She could barely hold the glass, and it rattled against her teeth as she drank. "This is frustrating," she growled, steadying it with her other hand.

He reached out, carefully pulling her hands from it and steadying it himself. "Just relax," he said quietly. "It's probably not a good idea to hold anything if your hands are that weak."

She closed her eyes and breathed out through her nose, then tried to take the cup back. "I'm sick," she protested. "Not helpless."

"Actually, right now, you're as good as in this state," he replied, persisting. "Sit back and enjoy being taken care of. It doesn't happen often."

"Doctors make the worst patients," she pointed out, but leaned back against the pillows and took a long sip, then pushed it away. "Not too much at a time."

He raised his eyebrows at this. "Yes," he said. "Yes they do." But he went more slowly with the water, then put it on the table, taking a long gulp from his own. He tucked the blanket up more closely around her, fluffing her pillows, then placing the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

She was still abnormally warm to the touch, but without the dangerous, dry heat of before. What was more alarming was the way the bones stood up under her skin. Already skinny, now she looked like an anatomical reference illustration. She passed a hand over her face, rubbing her eyes, and looked around. "Where's Frank? Did we leave him behind?"

He shook his head. "Your cat is currently curled on my chair and happily shedding."

"Heh," she said apologetically. "He does that. Well, I'm not going to be as worthless as him. Could you please bring me my notebooks? I can work on that, at least, if I'm going to be stuck in bed for a while."  
"Hnn," he said, looking down at her frowning face for a moment before smoothing back her hair. He stood and found the rucksacks, bringing them back to the bed and opening them, pulling out their contents.

She pulled the one she wanted onto her lap and flipped it open, fumbling a pen out of the spiral binding, and promptly dropping the pen. Retrieving it, she glared at her hands, which were still shaking, willing them to obey her. She dropped the pen again. "This is intolerable," she hissed.

"Sounds familiar," Octavius observed, lying down next to her and looking up at her where she sat against the pillows. In the rather dim light, his half-open eyes looked amused, even more so as he smiled slightly.

She coughed, and finally got the pen to stay in her hand, but couldn't write anything legible. Her hand was shaking too hard. "This will pass," she told herself through gritted teeth. "Not the most severe symptoms I've ever seen. I just need to give it time..." She growled and shoved the notebook away, leaning her head back against the pillows. "I haven't been sick since I was a kid."

He reached up, warming her hand with his. "Not in this condition" he agreed. He sat up again, finding the cup of water again and bringing it to her lips. When she made to protest, he said only, "Shh."

Swallowing her objections, she drank deeply. When he took the cup away, she reached out for his other hand. "You'd better be careful," she quipped sleepily. "If someone sees you, they'll think the great Doc Ock's gone soft."

"Then it's a good job no-one can see me, isn't it?" he murmured, leaning forward and kissing her, reaching past her to put the cup back on the table. He lay down in the squashy nest, his arms reaching up and circling round her. "You'd best get some sleep. Even I know it'll be difficult to get your strength back if you don't."

"I've been sleeping for three days," she pointed out. But that didn't stop her from yawning and sliding down to lie with her head pillowed on his arm. "Much more and I'll turn into Rip Van Winkle."

He made an amused sound, his fingers slipping through her hair. "A few hours at the most, then you ought to eat, and I won't take no for an answer." He huffed. "Gone soft, indeed..." but his fingers relaxed against her head and he sighed sleepily after another moment.

"Right, food," she said, without enthusiasm. Idly, she rubbed her ear, exploring its new shape. It was almost entirely healed over now, and the scar tissure was sensitive. "Mmm," she mused aloud. "Wonder if Brandon's checked the fridge yet?"

A sleepy, amused sound resulted at that. "It'd be a surprise, that's certain."

She smiled, and kissed him, pulling the blankets up more tightly over her shoulders. "See you in a few hours." That said, she closed her eyes, a smile half-formed on her lips.

"Mmmm," he replied, his fingers curling in her hair again before going still. He sighed again and soon could be heard snoring quietly. The cat appeared out of nowhere, picked his way across the bed, and curled up next to Octavius' head, purring.

Hanging outside the window and peering through the blinds, Spider-man blinked. "That's no Stockholm syndrome there," he muttered to himself, climbing back onto the roof. Far from thinking Ock had gone soft, he realized his old enemy had simply become even deadlier. Now he had something to protect.

The hours since the encounter with the vigilante hadn't been any more productive than the hours before, and the two agents were taking a break at the hotel. Johnson was stretched out in the chair by the window when the phone rang violently by his head, startling him out of a half-sleep. Looking over at Hanover, he grabbed it and answered. "Agent Johnson here, hello?"

"Uhm, hi, this is Peter Parker," said the hesitant voice on the other end. "I was told to give you a message from Spider-man."

"Okay," said Johnson, pleasantly surprised. "Just a second." Covering the mouthpiece, he said to Hanover "It's the Parker kid. He's got a message from Spider-Man. Do you want to take this?"  
Hanover nodded and reached for the phone, locating a pen and paper in case there was anything he might need to write down. "Hanover here," he said, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. "You got a message from Spider-man? About Octavius?"

"Yeah..." Parker started. There was a pause in which it sounded like he was gathering notes, or maybe his thoughts. "He found Doc Ock's hideout--"

Hanover leapt on that. "Where is it?"

"He wouldn't tell me," Parker replied. "Said some things stay in the business or something like that, I didn't get it. But he said he found the hideout and took a look inside. He said that Doctor Holmes was there, sick, but otherwise okay."

"What were they doing?"

"Uh, sleeping."

"What, both of them?" Hanover yelped.

"Both of them what?" asked Johnson, who couldn't hear Parker.

Hanover blinked at him as though seeing him for the first time. "Sleeping," he said, then returned his attention to the phone. "Well, did he tell you anything else?"

"He said it certainly didn't look like a case of ... what was it you said, Stockholm syndrome. It looked like Octavius was ... taking care of her."

"I'll be damned..." Hanover said, staring straight ahead. "Yeah, uh, thanks, kid." He hung up, staring.  
"So, what's the situation?" Johnson asked. His superior looked a little out of it. "What did he tell you?"  
For an answer, Hanover burst out laughing. "That slick bastard!" he chortled. "Looking at him you never would have thought he had it in him!"

"What did he say?" repeated Johnson, slightly annoyed. "I wasn't privy to the conversation, remember?"

Hanover calmed his laughter. "Apparently Spider-man found Octavius' lair, though he didn't tell the kid where it was, and found them inside. Sleeping. Apparently together. She's in love with him but get this..." he sniggered. "According to the bug, the feeling's mutual." He snerked again and shook his head.  
Johnson looked skeptical. "This entire situation makes no sense to me whatsoever, sir. And if Spider-Man knows where they are, why isn't he turning them in?"

"I dunno," came Hanover's reply. "According to the files, Spider-man and Octavius have something of a weird gentleman's agreement going on. Almost as though they figure they know when to leave each other alone. Guess this is one of those times. The trail's gotten so tangled it'd be next to impossible to pursue him now."

"This whole thing's been botched since the beginning," said Johnson soberly. "He should never have been able to find Holmes in the first place, and now she's on his side, two Canadian citizens are dead, and he's back on his home turf, where we have no hope of being able to outmaneuver him." He would have said more, but the phone rang again. He answered, and listened to rapid-fire talk from the officer at the other end. When he hung up, he turned back to Hanover, his face concerned. "That was the bureau back in Washington. There's been a problem. All of Dr. Holmes' research, the stuff we confiscated from her lab, has disappeared."

Hanover blinked. "What we confiscated from her lab... the notes she didn't take with her?"

"Yeah, and the samples, and the resources, and the slides... All of it." Johnson sighed, rubbing his temples. "They were being transferred to a more secure facility to prevent exactly this from happening, and they never got there. The paper-work's missing, no one knows who had them last, and no one's saying anything. This was very smoothly done."

With a sigh, Hanover sat back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Please tell me it was just Octavius being thorough," he moaned. "We've been chasing the man for a week, he couldn't have, but I don't want to think about the alternative."

"Unless he has more accomplices than just Holmes," pointed out Johnson. "He used to work with a gang, though he hasn't lately. Reverting to old tricks?"

"Octavius has been a loner for years, now," Hanover mused. "Though if he's gotten himself a woman again, who knows what he might go back to doing. An Octo-gang is certainly less frightening than the possibility of a second party becoming involved." he finished darkly. "Though I have a sneaking suspicion that's what it is."

"From what I've heard from experts," Johnson said, pulling the file from his suitcase. "The stuff that Dr. Holmes has been working on is in the realms of scary science. All sorts of unethical potential. She was ordered to cease and desist after the first incident with Octavius, but obviously, she didn't. It's being tested officially as a regenerative, but that's slow going and highly regulated. A lot of companies have shown an interest, companies like Oscorp and Wayne Industries, but the FDA isn't releasing anything yet."

"Oscorp," Hanover echoed darkly. "I wouldn't put it past Norman Osborn. And it would explain the clean sweep." He sighed again, dropping his head into his hand. "This just keeps getting more and more tangled..."

"You're not going to avoid tangles when you start with an eight-armed madman and a neurosurgeon, sir," said Johnson dejectedly. "Are we done here?"

Hanover sighed gustily. "I guess so," he said, looking at the other. "There's nothing else we can do here." He looked around again, then out the window. Octavius was out there, free and even more dangerous. Someone else had Holmes' neuroscience advances. And here he was, his hands tied.

"I only hope this won't come back to haunt us."


End file.
